
m 







l'^ 



THE 

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN 

PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. 



VOLUME XIII. 



CANDID EXAMINATION 



»/ 



OF 



THEISM. 



BY 



PHYSICUS. 



BOSTON: \ 

HOUGHTOX, OSGOOD, & COMPANY. 

1878. 

\All rights reserved. 1 



48 65 55 

JUL 1 7 1942 






/-N 



\ 









CANST THOU BY SEARCHING FIND OUT GOD? 



PREFACE. 



The following essay was written several years ago ; but I 
have hitherto refrained from publishing it, lest, after 
having done so, I should find that more mature thought 
had modified the conclusions which the essay sets forth. 
Judging, however, that it is now more than ever impro- 
bable that I shall myself be able to detect any errors in 
my reasoning, I feel that it is time to present the latter 
to the contemplation of other minds ; and in doing so, I 
make this explanation only because I feel it desirable to 
state at the outset that the present treatise was written 
before the publication of Mr. Mill's treatise on the same 
subject. It is desirable to make this statement, first, 
because in several instances the trains of reasoning in the 
two essays are parallel, and next, because in other in- 
stances I have quoted passages from Mr. Mill's essay in 
connections which would be scarcely intelligible were it 
not understood that these passages are insertions made 
after the present essay had been completed. I have also 
added several supplementary essays which have been 
written since the main essay was finished. 

It is desirable further to observe, that the only reason 
why I publish this edition anonymously is because I feel 
very strongly that, in matters of the kind with which the 
present essay deals, opinions and arguments should be 



viii PREFACE. 

allowed to produce the exact degree of influence to whicli 
as opinions and arguments they are entitled : they should 
be permitted to stand upon their own intrinsic merits 
alone, and quite beyond the shadow of that unfair pre- 
judication which cannot but arise so soon as their 
author's authority, or absence of authority, becomes 
known. !N'otwithstanding this avowal, however, I fear 
that many who glance over the following pages will read 
in the " Physicus " of the first one a very different motive. 
There is at the present time a wonderfully wide-spread 
sentiment pervading all classes of society — a sentiment 
which it would not be easy to define, but the practical 
outcome of which is, that to discuss the question of 
which this essay treats is, in some way or other, morally 
wrong. Many, therefore, who share this sentiment will 
doubtless attribute my reticence to a puerile fear on my 
part to meet it. I can only say that such is not the 
case. Although I allude to this sentiment with all 
respect — believing as I do that it is an offshoot from the 
stock which contains all that is best and greatest in 
human nature — nevertheless it seems to me impossible 
to deny that the sentiment in question is as unreasonable 
as the frame of mind which harbours it must be un- 
reasoning. If there is no God, where can be the harm 
in our examining the spurious evidence of his existence ? 
If there is a God, surely our first duty towards him must 
be to exert to our utmost, in our attempts to find him, 
the most noble faculty with which he has endowed us — 
as carefully to investigate the evidence which he has 
seen fit to furnish of his own existence as we investigate 
the evidence of inferior things in his dependent creation. 
To say that there is one rule or method for ascertaining 
truth in the latter case, which it is not legitimate to apply 



PREFACE, ix 

in the former case, is merely a covert way of saying that 
the Deity, if he exists, has not supplied us with rational 
evidence of his existence. For my own part, I feel that 
such an assertion cannot but embody far more unworthy 
conceptions of a Personal God than are represented by 
any amount of earnest inquiry into whatever evidence of 
his existence there may be present ; but, neglecting this 
reflection, if there is a God, it is certain that reason is 
the' faculty by which he has enabled man to discover 
truth, and it is no less certain that the scientific methods 
have proved themselves by far the most trustworthy for 
reason to adopt. To my mind, therefore, it is impossible 
to resist the conclusion that, looking to this undoubted 
pre-eminence of the scientific methods as ways to truth, 
whether or not there is a God, the question as to his 
existence is both more morally and more reverently contem- 
plated if we regard it purely as a problem for methodical 
analysis to solve, than if we regard it in any other light. 
Or, stating the case in other words, I believe that in 
whatever degree we intentionally abstain from using in 
this case what we hnmjo to be the most trustworthy 
methods of inquiry in other cases, in that degree are we 
either unworthily closing our eyes to a dreaded truth, or 
we are guilty of the worst among human sins — " Depart 
from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." If 
it is said that, supposing man to be in a state of probation, 
faith, and not reason, must be the instrument of his trial, 
I am ready to admit the validity of the remark ; but I 
must also ask it to be remembered, that unless faith has 
some basis of reason whereon to rest, it differs in nothing 
from superstition ; and hence that it is still our duty to 
investigate the rational standing of the question before us 
by the scientific methods alone. And I may here observe 



X PREFACE. , 

parenthetically, that the same reasoning applies to all 
investigations concerning the reality of a supposed reve- 
lation. With such investigations, however, the present 
essay has nothing to do, although I may remark that if 
there is any evidence of a Divine Mind discernible in 
the structure of a professing revelation, such evidence, 
in whatever degree present, would be of the best possible 
kind for substantiating the hypothesis of Theism. 

Such being, then, what I conceive the only reasonable, 
as well as the most truly moral, way of regarding the 
question to be discussed in the following pages, even if 
the conclusions yielded by this discussion were more 
negative than they are, I should deem it culpable 
cowardice in me for this reason to publish anonymously. 
For even if an inquiry of the present kind could ever result 
in a final demonstration of Atheism, there might be much 
for its author to regret, but nothing for him to be ashamed 
of ; and, by parity of reasoning, in whatever degree the 
result of such an inquiry is seen to have a tendency 
to negative the theistic theory, the author should not be 
ashamed candidly to acknowledge his conviction as to the 
degree of such tendency, provided only that his convic- 
tion is an honest one, and that he is conscious of its having 
been reached by using his faculties with the utmost 
care of which he is capable. 

If it is retorted that the question to be dealt with is of 
so ultimate a character that even the scientific methods 
are here untrustworthy, I reply that they are nevertheless 
the test methods available, and hence that the retort is 
without pertinence : the question is still to be regarded as 
a scientific one, although we may perceive that neither an 
affirmative nor a negative answer can be given to it with 
any approach to a full demonstration. But if the question 



PREFACE. xi 

is thus conceded to be one falling within the legitimate 
scope of rational inquiry, it follows that the mere fact of 
demonstrative certainty being here antecedently impossible 
should not deter us from instituting the inquiry. It is 
a well-recognised principle of scientific research, that 
however difficult or impossible it may be to 'pro'ce a 
given theory true or false, the theory should nevertheless 
be tested, so far as it admits of being tested, by the full 
rigour of the scientific methods. Where demonstration 
cannot be hoped for, it still remains desirable to reduce 
the question at issue to the last analysis of which it is 
capable. 

Adopting these principles, therefore, I have endeavoured 
in the following analysis to fix the precise standing of the 
evidence in favour of the theory of Theism, when the 
latter is viewed in all the flood of light which the progress 
of modern science — physical and speculative — has shed 
upon it. And forasmuch as it is impossible that demon- 
strated truth can ever be shown untrue, and forasmuch 
as the demonstrated truths on which the present examina- 
tion rests are the most fundamental which it is possible 
for the human mind to reach, I do not think it pre- 
sumptuous to assert what appears to me a necessary 
deduction from these facts — namely, that, possible errors 
in reasoning apart, the rational position of Theism as here 
defined must remain without material modification as long 
as our intelligence remains human. 

London, 1878. 



ANALYSIS. 



-O- 



CHAPTER I. 

EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR 
OF THEISM. 

SECT. PAGE 

1. Introductory i 

2. Object of the chapter 2 

3. The Argument from the Inconceivability of Self-existence . 2 

4. The Argument from the Desirability of there being a God . 3 

5. The Argument from the Presence of Human Aspirations . 3 

6. The Argument from Consciousness ..... 4 

7 . The Argument for a First Cause 6 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 

8. Introductory 10 

9. Examination of the. Argument, and the independent coin- 

cidence of my views regarding it with those of Mr. MiU . 10 

10. Locke's exposition of the Argument, and a re-enimciation 

of it in the form of a Syllogism 11 

11. The Syllogism defective in that it cannot explain Mind in 

the abstract. Mill quoted and answered. This defect 

in the Syllogism clearly defined 12 

1 2. The Syllogism further defective, in that it assumes Intelli- 

gence to be the only possible cause of Intelligence. This 
assumption amounts to begging the whole question as to 
the being of a God. Inconceivability of Matter thinking 



xiv CONTENTS, 

SECT. _ ^ PAGB 

no proof that it may not think. Locke himself strangely 
concedes this. His fallacies and self - contradictions 
pointed out in an Appendix 14 

13. Objector to the Syllogism need not be a Materialist, but 

assuming that he is one, he is as much entitled to the 
hypothesis that Matter thinks as a Theist is to his 
hypothesis that it does not 16 

14. The two hypotheses are thus of exactly equivalent value, 

save that while Theism is arbitrary, Materialism has a 
certain basis of fact to rest upon. This basis defined in 
a footnote, where also Professor Clifford's essay on " Body 
and Mind " is briefly examined. Difficulty of estimating 
, the worth of the Argument as to the most conceivable 

being most likely true 17 

15. Locke's comparison between certainty of the Inconceiv- 

ability Argument as appKed to Theism and to mathe- 
matics shown to contain a virtual though not a formal 
fallacy 19 

16. Summary of considerations as to the value of this Argu- 

ment from Inconceivability 20 

17. Introductory to the other Arguments in favour of the con- 

clusion that only Intelligence can have caused Intelli- 
gence 21 

18. Locke's presentation of the view that the cause must con- 

tain all that is contained in the effects. His statements 
contradicted. Mill quoted to show that the analogy 
of Nature is against the doctrine of higher perfections 
never growing out of lower ones 21 

19. Enunciation of the last of the Arguments in favour of the 

proposition that only Intelligence can cause Intelligence. 
Hamilton quoted to show that in his philosophy the 
entire question as to the being of a God hinges upon that 
as to whether or not human volitions are caused . . 22 

20. Absurdity of the old theory of Free-will. Hamilton 

erroneously identified this theory with the fact that we 
possess a moral sense. His resulting dilemma . . 23 

21. Although Hamilton was wrong in thus identifying genuine 

fact with spurious theory, yet his Argument from the fact 

of our having a moral sense remains to be considered . 26 

22. The question here is merely as to whether or not the pre- 

sence of the moral sense can be explained by natural 
causes. A priori probability of the moral sense having 
been evolved. A posteriori confirmation supplied by 
Utilitarianism, &c 27 



CONTENTS, XV 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 



36 
37 
38 



40 



23. Mill's presentation of tlie Argument a resuscitation of 

Paley's. His criticism on Paley shown to be unfair 

24. The real fallacy of Paley's presentation pointed out . 

25. The same fallacy pointed out in another way 

26. Paley's typical case quoted and examined, in order to illus 

trate the root-fallacy of his Argument from Design 
Mill's observations upon this Argument criticised . 

27. Result yielded by the present analysis of the Argument 

from Design. The Argument shown to be a petitio 
principii 43 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS. 

28. My belief that no competent writer in favour of the Argu- 

ment from Design could have written upon it at all, 
had it not been for his instinctive appreciation of the 
much more important Argument from General Laws. 
The nature of this Argument stated, and its cogency 
insisted upon 45 

29. The rational standing of the Argument from General Laws 

prior to the enunciation of the doctrine of the Conserva- 
tion of Energy. The Rev, Baden Powell quoted . . 47 

30. The nature of General Laws when these are interpreted in 

tei-ms of the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. 
The word "Law " defined in terms of this doctrine . 52 

31. The rational standing of the Argument from General Laws 

subsequent to the enunciation of the doctrine of the Con- 
servation of Energy 53 

32. The self- evolution of General Laws, or the objective aspect 

of the question as to whether we may infer the presence 
of Mind in Nature because Nature admits of being 

iritelligently interrogated 54 

2Z. The subjective aspect of this question, according to the data 

afforded by evolutionary psychology .... 57 



xvi CONTENTS. 

SECT. PAGE 

34. Correspondence between products due to human intelligence 

and products supposed due to Divine Intelligence, a 
correspondence which is only generic. Illustrations 
drawn from prodigality in Nature. Further illustrations. 
Illogical manner in which natural theologians deal with 
such difficulties. The generic resemblance contemplated 
is just what we should expect to find, if the doctrine of 
evolutionary psychology be true 60 

35. The last three sections parenthetical. Necessary nature of 

the conclusion which foUows from the last five sections . 63 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO THE 
BEING OF A GOD. 

36. Emphatic re-statement of the conclusion reached ',in the 

previous chapter. This conclusion shown to be of merely 
scientific, and not of logical conclusiveness. Preparation 
for considering the question in its purely logical form . 64 

37. The logic of probability in general explained, and canon of 

interpretation enunciated ...... 66 

38. Application of this canon to the particular case of Theism 67 

39. Exposition of the logical state of the question ... 67 

40. Exposition continued 69 

41. Result of the exposition; "Suspended Judgment" the 

only logical attitude of mind with regard to the question 

of Theism . , 70 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 

42. Statement of the position to which the question of Theism 

has been reduced by the foregoing analysis ... 72 

43. Distinction between a scientific and a metaphysical teleology. 

Statement of the latter in legitimate terms. Criticism 
of this statement legitimately made on the side of 
Atheism as being gratuitous. Impartial judgment on 
this criticism 74 



CONTENTS. xvii 

SECT. PAGE 

44. Exammation of the question as to whetlier the meta- 

physical system of teleology is really destitute of all 
rational support. Pleading of a supposed Theist in sup- 
port of the system. The principle of correlation of 
general Jaws. The complexity of Nature . . .78 

45. Summary of the Theist's pleading, and judgment that it 

fairly removes from the hypothesis of metaphysical 
teleology the charge of the latter being gratuitous . 80 

46. Examination of the degree of probahility that is presented 

by the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology, comprising 
an examination of the Theistic objection to the scientific 
train of reasoning on account of its symbolism, and 
showing that a no less cogent objection lies against 
the metaphysical train of reasoning on account of its 
embodj'ing the supposition of unknowable causes. Dis- 
tinction between "inconceivability" in a formal or sym- 
bolical, and in a material or realisable sense. Reply of 
a supposed Atheist to the previous pleading of the 
supposed Theist. Herbert Spencer quoted on inconceiv- 
ability of cosmic evolution as due to Mind ... 83 

47. Final judgment on the rational value of a metaphysical 

system of teleology. Distinction between "inconceiv- 
ability " in an absolute and in a relative sense. Final 
judgment on the attitude of mind which it is rational to 
adopt towards the question of Theism. The desirability 
and the rationality of tolerance in this particular case . 93 



CHAPTER VII. 
GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 

48. General summary of the whole essay 102 

49. Concluding remarks no 

APPENDIX AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. 

Appendix. 

A Critical Exposition of a Fallacy in Locke's use of the 
Argument against the possibility of ISIatter thinking on 
grounds of its being inconceivable that it should . .117 



xviii CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Supplementary Essay I. 

Examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Theistical Argu- 
ment, and criticism to show that it is' inadequate to 
sustain the doctrine of "Cosmic Theism" which Mr. 
Fiske endeavours to rear upon it 129 

Supplementary Essay II. 

A Critical Examination of the Kev. Professor Flint's work 
on "Theism" . . . 152 

Supplementary Essay III. 

On the Speculative Standing of Materialism . . . i8i 

Supplementary Essay IV. 

On the Final Mystery of Things 189 



THEISM. 



CHAPTER I. 

EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR 

OF THEISM. 

§ I. Few subjects have occupied so much attention among 
speculative thinkers as that which relates to the being of 
God. Notwithstanding, however, the great amount that 
has been written on this subject, I am not aware that 
any one has successfully endeavoured to approach it, on 
all its various sides, from the ground of pure reason alone, 
and thus to fix, as nearly as possible, the exact position 
which, in pure reason, this subject ought to occupy. 
Perhaps it will be thought that an exception to this state- 
ment ought to be made in favour of John Stuart Mill's 
posthumous essay on Theism ; but from my great respect 
for this author, I should rather be inclined to regard that 
essay as a criticism on illogical arguments, than as a 
careful or matured attempt to formulate the strictly 
rational status of the question in all its bearings. ISTever- 
theless, as this essay is in some respects the most scientific, 
just, and cogent, which has yet appeared on the subject 
of which it treats, and as anything which came from the 
pen of that great and accurate thinker is deserving of the 
most serious attention, I shall carefully consider his views 
throughout the course of the following pages. 

A 



2 EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS 

Seeing then that, with this partial exception, no com- 
petent writer has hitherto endeavoured once for all to 
settle the long-standing question as to the rational proba- 
bility of Theism, I cannot but feel that any attempt, how- 
ever imperfect, to do this, will be welcome to thinkers of 
every school — the more so in view of the fact that the 
prodigious rapidity which of late years has marked the 
advance both of physical and of speculative science, has 
afforded highly valuable data for assisting us towards a 
reasonable and, I think, a final decision as to the strictly 
logical standing of this important matter. However, be 
my attempt welcome or no, I feel that it is my obvious 
duty to publish the results which have been yielded by 
an honest and careful analysis. 

§ 2. I may most fitly begin this analysis by briefly 
disposing of such arguments in favour of Theism as are 
manifestly erroneous. And I do this the more willingly 
because, as these arguments are at the present time most 
in vogue, an exposure of their fallacies may perhaps deter 
our popular apologists of the future from drawing upon 
themselves the silent contempt of every reader whose 
intellect is not either prejudiced or imbecile. 

§ 3. A favourite piece of apologetic juggling is that of 
first demolishing Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, &c., 
by successively calling upon them to explain the mystery 
of self-existence, and then tacitly assuming that the need 
of such an explanation is absent in the case of Theism — 
as though the attribute in question were more conceivable 
when posited in a Deity than when posited elsewhere. 

It is, I hope, unnecessary to observe that, so far as the 
ultimate mystery of existence is concerned, any and every 
theory of things is equally entitled to the inexplicable fact 
that something is ; and that any endeavour on the part of 
the votaries of one theory to shift from themselves to the 
votaries of another theory the onus of explaining the 
necessarily inexplicable, is an instance of irrationality 
which borders on the ludicrous. 



• IN FAVOUR OF THEISM. 3 

§ 4. Another argument, or semblance of an argument, 
is the very prevalent one, " Our heart requires a God ; 
therefore it is probable that there is a God : " as though 
such a subjective necessity, even if made out, could ever 
prove an objective existence.! 

§ 5. If it is said that the theistic aspirations of the 
human heart, by the mere fact of their presence, point to 
the existence of a God as to their explanatory cause, I 
answer that the argument would only be valid after the 
possibility of any more proximate causes having been in 
action has been excluded — else the theistic explanation 
violates the fundamental rule of science, the Law of Parci- 
mony, or the law which forbids us to assume the action 
of more remote causes where more proximate ones are 
found sufficient to explain the effects. Consequently, the 
validity of the argument now under consideration is 
inversely proportional to the number of possibilities 
there are of the aspirations in question being due to 
the agency of physical causes; and forasmuch as our 
ignorance of psychological causation is weU-nigh total, the 
Law of Parcimony forbids us to allow any determinate 
degree of logical value to the present argument. In other 

1 The above was written before Mr. universe possible, not the best absol- 

Mill's essay on Theism was published, utely : that the Divine power, in 

Lest, therefore, my refutation may short, was not equal to making it 

be deemed too curt, I supplement it more free from imperfections than it 

with Mr. Mill's remarks upon the is. But optimism, prior to belief in 

same subject. " It may still be a God, and as the ground of that be- 

maintained that the feelings of mora- lief, seems one of the oddest of all 

lity make the existence of God emin- speculative delusions. Nothing, how- 

ently desirable. No doubt they do, ever, I believe, contributes more to 

and that is the great reason why we keep up the belief in the general mind 

find that good men and women cling of humanity than the feeling of its 

to the belief, and are pained by its desirableness, which, when clothed, 

being questioned. But, surely, it is as it very often is, in the form of an 

not legitimate to assume that, in the argument, is a naive expression of the 

order of the universe, whatever is tendency of the human mind to be- 

desirable is true. Optimism, even lieve whatever is agreeable to it. 

when a God is already believed in, is Positive value the argument of course 

a thorny doctrine to maintain, and has none." For Mill's remarks on 

had to be taken by Leibnitz in the the version of the argument dealt 

limited sense, that the universe being with in § 5, see his "Three Essays," 

made by a good being, is the best p. 204. 



4 EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS 

words, we must not use the absence of knowledge as 
equivolent to its presence — must not argue from our 
ignorance of psychological possibilities, as though this 
ignorance were knowledge of corresponding impossibilities. 
The burden of proof thus lies on the side of Theism, and 
from the nature of the case this burden cannot be dis- 
charged until the science of psychology shall have been 
fully perfected. I may add that, for my own part, I cannot 
help feeling that, even in the present embryonic condition 
of this science, we are not without some indications of 
the manner in which the aspirations in question arose ; 
but even were this not so, the above considerations prove 
that the argument before us is invalid. If it is retorted 
that the fact of these aspirations having had proximate 
causes to account for their origin, even if made out, would 
not negative the inference of these being due to a Deity 
as to their ultimate cause ; I answer that this is not to 
use the argument from the presence of these aspirations ; 
it is merely to beg the question as to the being of a God. 

§ 6. Next, we may consider the argument from con- 
sciousness. Many persons ground their belief in the 
existence of a Deity upon a real or supposed necessity 
of their own subjective thought. I say "real or supposed," 
because, in its bearing upon rational argument, it is of no 
consequence of which character the alleged necessity 
actually is. Even if the necessity of thought be real, all 
that the fact entitles the thinker to affirm is, that it is 
impossible for him, by any effort of thinking, to rid him- 
self of the persuasion that God exists ; he is not entitled 
to affirm that this persuasion is necessarily bound up with 
the constitution of the human mind. Or, as Mill puts it, 
" One man cannot by proclaiming with ever so much con- 
fidence that he perceives an object, convince other people 
that they see it too. . . . When no claim is set up to 
any peculiar gift, but we are told that all of us are as 
capable of seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels, nay, 
that we actually do so, and when the utmost effort of 



IN FAVOUR OF THEISM. 5 

which we are capable fails to make us aware of what we 
are told, we perceive this supposed universal faculty of 
intuition is but 

* The Dark Lantern of the Spirit 
Which none see by but those who bear it.'" 

It is thus, I think, abundantly certain that the present 
argument must, from its very nature, be powerless as an 
argument to anyone save its assertor ; as a matter of fact, 
the alleged necessity of thought is not universal; it is 
peculiar to those who employ the argument. 

And now, it is but just to go one step further and to 
question whether the alleged necessity of thought is, in 
any case and properly speaking, a real necessity. Unless 
those who advance the present argument are the ^dctims 
of some mental aberration, it is overwhelmingly improb- 
able that their minds should differ in a fundamental and 
important attribute from the minds of the vast majority 
of their species. Or, to continue the above quotation, 
" They may fairly be^ asked to consider, whether it is not 
more likely that they are mistaken as to the origin of an 
impression in their minds, than that others are ignorant 
of the very existence of an impression in theirs." ^N'o 
doubt it is true that education and habits of thought may 
so stereotype the intellectual faculties, that at last what 
is conceivable to one man or generation may not be so to 
another ;i but to adduce this consideration in this place 
would clearly be but to destroy the argument from the 
intuitive necessity of believing in a God. 

Lastly, although superfluous, it may be well to point 
out that even if the impossibility of conceiving the nega- 
tion of God were an universal law of human mind — 
which it certainly is not — the fact of his existence could 
not be thus proved. Doubtless it would be felt to be 
much more probable than it now is — as probable, for 

1 The words "or not conceivable," relatively conceivable," as explained 
are here used in the sense of ' ' not in Chap. vi. 



6 EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS 

instance, if not more probable, than is the existence of an 
external world; — but still it would not be necessarily- 
true. 

§ 7. The argument from the general consent of mankind 
is so clearly fallacious, both as to facts and principles, 
that I shall pass it over and proceed at once to the last of 
the untenable arguments — that, namely, from the exist- 
ence of a First Cause. And here I should like to express 
myself indebted to Mr. Mill for the following ideas: — 
" The cause of every change is a prior change ; and such 
it cannot but be ; for if there were no new antecedent, 
there would be no new consequent. If the state of facts 
which brings the phenomenon into existence, had existed 
always or for an indefinite duration, the effect also would 
have existed always or been produced an indefinite time 
ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of causation, 
within the sphere of experience, that the causes as well as 
the effects had a beginning in time, and were themselves 
caused. It would seem, therefore, that our experience, 
instead of furnishing an argument for a first cause, is 
repugnant to it ; and that the very essence of causation, 
as it exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incom- 
patible with a First Cause." 

The rest of Mr. Mill's remarks upon the First Cause 
argument are tolerably obvious, and had occurred to me 
before the publication of his essay. I shall, however, 
adhere to his order of presenting them. 

" But it is necessary to look more particularly into this 
matter, and analyse more closely the nature of the causes 
of which mankind have experience. For if it should turn 
out that though all causes have a beginning, there is in 
all of them a permanent element which had no beginning, 
this permanent element may with some justice be termed 
a first or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufiicient 
of itself to cause anything, it enters as a con-cause into 
all causation." 

He then shows that the doctrine of the Conservation 



IN FAVOUR OF THEISM. 7 

of Energy supplies us with such a datum, and thus the 
conclusion easily follows — " It would seem, then, that the 
only sense in which experience supports, in any shape, 
the doctrine of a First Cause, viz., as the primaeval and 
universal element of all causes, the First Cause can be no 
other than Force." 

Still, however, it may he maintained that " all force is 
will-force." But " if there be any truth in the doctrine of 
Conservation of Force, . . . this doctrine does not change 
from true to false when it reaches the field of voluntary 
agency. The will does not, any more than other agencies, 
create Force : granting that it originates motion, it has no 
means of doing so but by converting into that particular 
manifestation, a portion of Force which already existed in 
other forms. It is known that the source from which this 
portion of Force is derived, is chiefly, or entirely, the force 
evolved in the processes of chemical composition and 
decomposition which constitute the body of nutrition: 
the force so liberated becomes a fund upon which every 
muscular and every nervous action, as of a train of 
thought, is a draft. It is in this sense only that, accord- 
ing to the best lights of science, volition is an originating 
cause. Volition, therefore, does not answer to the idea of 
a First Cause ; since Force must, in every instance, be as- 
sumed as prior to it ; and there is not the slightest colour, 
derived from experience, for supposing Force itself to 
have been created by a volition. As far as anything can 
be concluded from human experience. Force has all the 
attributes of a thing eternal and uncreated. . . . 

" All that can be affirmed (even) by the strongest asser- 
tion of the Freedom of the Will, is that volitions are 
themselves uncaused and are, therefore, alone fit to be the 
first or universal cause. But, even assuming volitions to 
be uncaused, the properties of matter, so far as experience 
discloses, are uncaused also, and have the advantage over 
any particular volition, in being, so far as experience can 
show, eternal. Theism, therefore, in so far as it rests on 



8 EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS 

the necessity of a First Cause, has no support from ex- 
perience." 

Such may be taken as a sufficient refutation of the 
argument that, as human volition is apparently a cause in 
nature, and moreover constitutes the basis of our concep- 
tion of all causation, therefore all causation is probably voli- 
tional in character. But as this is a favourite argument 
with some theists, I shall introduce another quotation 
from Mr. Mill, which is taken from a different work. 

" Volitions are not known to produce anything directly 
except nervous action, for the will influences even the 
muscles only through the nerves. Though it were granted, 
then, that every phenomenon has an efficient and not 
merely a phenomenal cause, and that volition, in the case 
of the particular phenomena which are known to be pro- 
duced by it, ns that cause ; are we therefore to say with 
these writers that since we know of no .other efficient 
cause, and ought not to assume one without evidence, 
there is no other, and volition is the direct cause of all 
phenomena? A more outrageous stretch of inference 
could hardly be made. Because among the infinite variety 
of the phenomena of nature there is one, namely, a parti- 
cular mode of action of certain nerves which has for its 
cause and, as we are now supposing, for its efficient 
cause, a state of our mind ; and because this is the only 
efficient cause of which we are conscious, being the only 
one of which, in the nature of the case, we can be con- 
scious, since it is the only one which exists within our- 
selves ; does this justify us in concluding that all other 
phenomena must have the same kind of efficient cause 
with that one eminently special, narrow, and peculiarly 
human or animal phenomenon ? " It is then shown that 
a logical parallel to this mode of inference is that of gene- 
ralising from the one known instance of the earth being 
inhabited, to the conclusion that " every heavenly body 
without exception, sun, planet, satellite, comet, fixed star, 
or nebula, is inhabited, and must be so from the inherent 



IN FA VOUR OF THEISM. 9 

constitution of things." After which the passage continues, 
" It is true there are cases in which, with acknowledged pro- 
priety, we generalise from a single instance to a multitude 
of instances. But they must be instances which resemble 
the one known instance, and not such as have no circum- 
stance in common with it except that of being instances. 
. . . But the supporters of the volition theory ask 
us to infer that volition causes everything, for no other 
reason except that it causes one particular thing ; although 
that one phenomenon, far from being a type of all natural 
phenomena, is eminently peculiar ; its laws bearing scarcely 
any resemblance to those of any other phenomenon, whether 
of inorganic or of organic nature." ^ 

^ For the full discussion from which gation of the severity of the above 

the above is an extract, see System of statement, the closing paragraphs of 

Logic, vol. i, pp. 409-426 (8th ed.). my supplementary essay on " Cosmic 

But, substituting "psychical" for Theism." 
' ' volitional, " see also, for some miti- 



( 10 ) 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE 
HUMAN MIND. 

§ 8. Leaving now the obviously untenable arguments, 
we next come to those which, in my opinion, may properly 
be termed scientific. 

It will be convenient to classify these as three in num- 
ber ; and under one or other of these heads nearly all the 
more intelligent advocates of Theism will be found to 
range themselves. 

§ 9. We have first the argument drawn from the exist- 
ence of the human mind. This is an argument which, for 
at least the last three centuries, and especially during the 
present one, has been more relied upon than any other by 
philosophical thinkers. It consists in the reflection that 
the being of our own subjective intelligence is the most 
certain fact which our experience supplies, that this fact 
demands an adequate cause for its explanation, and that 
the only adequate cause of our intelligence must be some 
other intelligence. Granting the existence of a condi- 
tioned intelligence (and no one could reasonably suppos^ 
his own intelligence to be otherwise), and the existence of 
an unconditioned intelligence becomes a logical necessity, 
unless we deny either the validity of the principle that 
every effect must have an adequate cause, or else that the 
only adequate cause of Mind is Mind. 

It has been a great satisfaction to me to find that my 
examination of this argument — an examination which 
was undertaken and completed several months before Mr. 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. ii 

Mill's essay apppeared — has been min-utely corroborated 
by that of our great logician, I mention this circumstance 
here, as on previous occasions, not for the petty motive 
of vindicating my own originality, but because in matters 
of this kind the accuracy of the reasoning employed, and 
therefore the logical validity of the conclusions attained, 
are guaranteed in the best possible manner, if the trains 
of thought have been independently pursued by different 
minds. 

§ lo. Seeing that, among the advocates of this argument, 
Locke went so far as to maintain that by it alone he 
could render the existence of a Deity as certain as any 
mathematical demonstration, it is only fair, preparatory to 
our examining this argument, to present it in the words of 
this crreat thinker. 

He says : — " There was a time when there was no 
knowing (i.e., conscious) being, and when knowledge 
began to be ; or else there has been also a knowing being 
from all eternity. If it be said, there was a time when 
no being had any knowledge, when that eternal being was 
void of all understanding, I reply, that then it was 
impossible there should ever have been any knowledge : 
it being as impossible that things wholly void of know- 
ledge, and operating blindly, and without perception, 
should produce a knowing being, as it is impossible that 
a triangle should make itself three angles bigcrer than two 
right ones. Tor it is as repugnant to the idea of senseless 
matter, that it should put into itself, sense, perception, 
and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle, 
that it should put into itself greater angles than two right 
ones." 1 

Now, although this argument has been more fully 
elaborate by other writers, the above presentation contains 
its whole essence. It will be seen that it has the great 
advantage of resting immediately upon the foundation 
from which all argument concerning this or any other 

^ Essay on Understanding— Existence of God. 



12 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

matter, must necessarily arise, viz., — upon the very exist- 
ence of our argumentative faculty itself. Eor the sake of 
a critical examination, it is desirable to throw the argu- 
ment before us into the syllogistic form. It will then 
stand thus : — 

All known minds are caused by an unknown mind. 
Our mind is a known mind ; therefore, our mind is 
caused by an unknown mind. 

Now the major premiss of this syllogism is inadmis- 
sible for two reasons : in the first place, it is assumed 
that known mind can only be caused by unknown 
mind ; and, in the second place, even if this assumption 
were granted, it would not explain the existence of Mind 
as Mind. To take the last of these objections first, in 
the words of Mr. Mill, " If the mere existence of Mind 
is supposed to require, as a necessary antecedent, another 
Mind greater and more powerful, the difficulty is not 
removed by going one step back: the creating mind 
stands as much in need of another mind to be the source 
of its existence as the created mind. Be it remembered 
that we have no direct knowledge (at least apart from 
Eevelation) of a mind which is even apparently eternal, 
as Force and Matter are : an eternal mind is, as far as 
the present argument is concerned, a simple hypothesis to 
account for the minds which we know to exist. ISTow it 
is essential to an hypothesis that, if admitted, it should at 
least remove the difficulty and account for the facts. But 
it does not account for mind to refer our mind to a prior 
mind for its origin. The problem remains unsolved, nay, 
rather increased." 

Nevertheless, I think that it is open to a Theist to 
answer, " My object is not to explain the existence of 
Mind in the abstract, any more than it is my object to 
explain Existence itself in the abstract — to either of 
which absurd attempts Mr. Mill's reasoning would be 
equally applicable ; — but I seek for an explanation of nfiy 
own individual finite mind, which I know to have had a 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 13 

beginning in time, and which, therefore, in accordance 
with the widest and most complete analogy that ex- 
perience supplies, I believe to have been caused. And if 
there is no other objection to my believing in Intelligence 
as the cause of my intelligence, than that I cannot prove 
my own intelligence caused, then I am satisfied to let the 
matter rest here ; for as every argument must have some 
basis of assumption to stand upon, I am well pleased 
to find that the basis in this case is the most solid which 
experience can supply, viz., — the law of causation. Fully 
admitting that it does not account for Mind (in the 
abstract) to refer one mind to a prior mind for its origin ; 
yet my hypothesis, if admitted, does account for the fact 
that my mind exists ; and this is all that my hypothesis 
is intended to cover. For to endeavour to explain the 
existence of an eternal mind, could only be done by those 
who do not understand the meaning of these words." 

Now, I think that this reply to Mr. Mill, on the part 
of a theist, would so far be legitimate ; the theistic hypo- 
thesis does supply a provisional explanation of the ex- 
istence of known minds, and it is, therefore, an explana- 
tion which, in lieu of a better, a theist may be allowed to 
retain. But a theist may not be allowed to confuse this 
provisional explanation of his own mind's existence with 
that of the existence of Mind in the abstract ; he must 
not be allowed to suppose that, by thus hypothetically 
explaining the existence of known minds, he is thereby 
establishing a probability in favour of that hypothetical 
cause, an Unknown Mind. Only if he has some indepen- 
dent reason to infer that such an Unknown Mind exists, 
could such a probability be made out, and his hypotheti- 
cal explanation of known mind become of more value 
than a guess. In other words, although the theistic 
hypothesis supplies a possible explanation of known mind, 
we have no reason to conclude that it is the true explana- 
tion, unless other reasons can be shown to justify, on inde- 
pendent grounds, the validity of the theistic hypothesis. 



14 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

Hence it is manifestly absurd to adduce this explanation 
as evidence of the hypothesis on which it rests — to argue 
that Theism must therefore be true, because we assume it 
to be so, in order to explain known mind, as distinguished 
from Mind. If it be answered, We are justified in 
assuming Theism true, because we are justified in assum- 
ing that known mind can only have been caused by an 
unknown mind, and hence that Mind must somewhere 
be self-existing, then this is to lead us to the second 
objection to the above syllogism. 

§ 12. And this second objection is of a most serious 
nature. " Mind can only be caused by Mind," and, there- 
fore. Mind must either be uncaused, or caused by a 
creating Mind. What is our warrant for making this 
assertion? Where is the proof that nothing can have 
caused a mind except another mind ? Answer to this 
question there is none. For aught that we can ever 
know to the contrary, anything within the whole range 
of the Possible may be competent to produce a self- 
conscious intelligence — and to assume that Mind is so far 
an entity sxii generis, that it must either be self-existing, 
or derived from another mind which is self-existing, is 
merely to beg the whole question as to the being of a 
God. In other words, if we can prove that the order of 
existence to which Mind belongs, is so essentially different 
from that order, or those orders, to which all else belongs, 
as to render it abstractedly impossible that the latter can 
produce the former — if we can prove this, we have like- 
wise proved the existence of a Deity. But this is just 
the point in dispute, and to set out with a bare affirma- 
tion of it is merely to beg the question and to abandon 
the discussion. Doubtless, by the mere act of consulting 
their own consciousness, the fact now in dispute appears 
to some persons self-evident. But in matters of such high 
abstraction as this, even the evidence of self-evidence 
must not be relied upon too implicitly. To the country 
boor it appears self-evident that wood is annihilated by 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 15 

combustion ; and even to the mind of the greatest philo- 
sophers of antiquity it seemed impossible to doubt that 
the sun moved over a stationary earth. Much more, 
therefore, may our broad distinction between " cogitative 
and incogitative being " l not be a distinction which is 
" legitimated by the conditions of external reality." 

Doubtless many will fall back upon the position 
abeady indicated, "It is as repugnant to the idea of 
senseless matter, that it should put into itself sense, per- 
ception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of 
a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles 
than two right ones." But, granting this, and also that 
conscious matter is the sole alternative, and what follows ? 
Not surely that matter cannot perceive, and feel, and 
know, merely because it is repugnant to our idea of it 
that it should. Granting that there is no other alterna- 
tive in the whole possibility of things, than that matter 
must be conscious, or that self-conscious Mind must 
somewhere be self-existing ; and granting that it is quite 
" impossible for us to conceive " of consciousness as an 
attribute of matter ; still surely it would be a prodigious 
leap to conclude that for this reason matter cannot 
possess this attribute. Indeed, Locke himself elsewhere 
strangely enough insists that thought may be a property 
of matter, if only the Deity chose to unite that attribute 
with that substance. Why it should be deemed abstract- 
edly impossible for matter to think if there is no God, 
and yet abstractedly possible that it should think if there 
is a God, I confess myself quite unable to determine; 
but I conceive that it is very important clearly to point 
out this peculiarity in Locke's views, for he is a favourite 
authority with theists, and this peculiarity amounts to 
nothing less than a suicide of his entire argument. The 
mere circumstance that he assumed the Deity capable of 
endowing matter with the faculty of thinking, could not 
have enabled him to conceive of matter as thinking, any 

^ Locke, loc. cit. 



i6 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

more than lie could conceive of this in the absence of his 
assumption. Yet in the one case he recognises the possi- 
bility of matter thinking, and in the other case denies 
such possibility, and this on the sole ground of its being 
inconceivable ! However, I am not here concerned with 
Locke's eccentricities : 1 I am merely engaged with the 
general principle, that a subjective inability to establish 
certain relations in thought is no sufficient warrant for 
concluding that corresponding objective relations may 
not obtain. 

§ 13. Hence, an objector to the above syllogism need 
not be a materialist; it is not even necessary that he 
should hold any theory of things at all. Nevertheless, 
for the sake of definition, I shall assume that he is a 
materialist. As a materialist, then, he would appear to 
be as much entitled to his hypothesis as a theist is to 
his — in respect, I mean, of this particular argument. For 
although I think, as before shown, that in strict reasoning 
a theist might have taken exception to the last-quoted 
passage from Mill in its connection with the law of 
causation, that passage, if considered in the present con- 
nection, is certainly unanswerable. What is the state of 
the present argument as between a materialist and a 
theist? The mystery of existence and the inconceiva- 
bility of matter thinking are their common data. Upon 
these data the materialist, justly arguing that he has no 
right to make his own conceptive faculty the uncondi- 
tional test of objective possibility, is content to merge the 
mystery of his own mind's existence into that of Exist- 
ence in general; while the theist, compelled to accept 
without explanation the mystery of Existence in general, 
nevertheless has recourse to inventing a wholly gratuitous 
hypothesis to explain one mode of existence in particular. 
If it is said that the latter hypothesis has the merit of 
causing the mystery of material existence and the mystery 
of mental existence to be united in a thinkable manner — 

^ See Appendix A. 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 



17 



viz., in a self-existing Mind, — I reply. It is not so ; for in 
whatever degree it is unthinkable that Matter should be 
the cause of Mind, in that precise degree must it be 
unthinkable that Mind was ever the cause of Matter, the 
correlatives being in each case the same, and experience 
affording no evidence of causality in either. 

§ 14. The two hypotheses, therefore, are of exactly 
equivalent value, save that while the one has a certain 
basis of fact to rest upon,^ the other is wholly arbitrary. 



1 Viz., the constant association 
•within experience of mind with cer- 
tain highly peculiar material forms ; 
the constant proportion which is 
found to subsist between the quan- 
tity of cerebral matter and the degree 
of intellectual capacity — a propor- 
tion which may be clearly traced 
throughout the ascending series of 
vertebrated animals, and which is 
very generally manifested in indivi- 
duals of the human species ; the effects 
of cerebral anaemia, anaesthetics, stim- 
ulants, narcotic poisons, and lesions 
of cerebral substance. There can, in 
short, be no question that the whole 
series of observable facts bearing 
upon the subject are precisely such 
as they ought to be upon supposition 
of the materialistic theory being true ; 
while, contrariwise, there is a total 
absence of any known facts tending 
to negative that theory. At the 
same time it must be carefully noted, 
that the observed facts (and any addi- 
tional number of the like kind) do 
not logically warrant us in concluding 
that mental states are necessarily 
dependent upon material changes. 
Nevertheless, it must also be noted, 
that, in the absence of positive proof 
of causation, it is certainly in accord- 
ance with scientific proceilure, to 
yield our provisional assent to an 
hypothesis which undoubtedly con- 
nects a large order of constant accom- 
paniments, rather than to an hypo- 
thesis which is confessedly framed to 
meet but a single one of the facts. 



Professor Clifford, in a lecture on 
"Body and Mind" which he deli- 
vered at St. George's Hall, and after- 
wards published in the Fortnightly 
Review, argues against the existence 
of God on the ground that, as Mind 
is always associated with Matter 
within exj)erience, there arises a pre- 
sumption against Mind existing any- 
where without being thus associated, 
so that unless we can trace in the 
disposition of the heavenly bodies 
some resemblance to the conforma- 
tion of cerebral structure, we are to 
conclude that there is a considerable 
balance of probability in favour of 
Atheism. Now, as this argument- 
if we rid it of the grotesque allusion 
to the heavenly bodies — is one that 
is frequently met with, it seems de- 
sirable in this place briefly to analyse 
it. First of all, then, the validity of 
the argument depends upon the pro- 
bability there is that the constant 
association of Mind with Matter 
within experience is due to a causal 
connection ; for if the association in 
question is inerely an association and 
nothing more, the origin of known 
mind is as far from being explained 
as it would be were Mind never known 
as associated with Matter. But, in 
the next place, supposing the con- 
stant association in question to be 
due to a causal connection, it by 
no means follows that because Mind 
is due to Matter within experience, 
therefore Mind cannot exist in any 
other mode beyond experience. 

B 



i8 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

But it may still be retorted, ' Is not that which is most 
conceivable most likely to be true ? and if it is more con- 
ceivable that my intelligence is caused by another Intelli- 
gence than that it is caused by Non-intelligence, may I 
not regard the more conceivable hypothesis as also the 
more probable one V It is somewhat difficult to say how 
far^this argument is, in this case, valid ; only I think it is 
quite evident that its validity is open to grave dispute. 
For nothing can be more evident to a philosophical 
thinker than that the substance of Mind must — so far at 
least as we can at present see — TiecessctW/?/ be unknowable; 
so that if Matter (and Force) be this substance, we should 
antecedently expect to find that the actual causal connec- 
tion should, in this particular case, be more inconceivable 
than some imaginary one : it would be more natural for 
the mind to infer that something conceivably more akin to 
itself should be its cause, than that this cause should be the 
entity which really gives rise to the unthinkable connec- 
tion. But even waiving this reflection, and granting that 
the above argument is valid, it is still to an indefinite 
degree valueless, seeing that we are unable to tell liow 
Tnuch it is more likely that the more conceivable should 
here be true than that the less conceivable should be so. 

Doubtless, from analogy, there is a been separately refuted. Doubtless 
presumption against the hypothesis Professor Clifford will be the first to 
that the same entity should exist in recognise the cogency of this criticism 
more than one mode at the same — if indeed it has not already occurred 
time ; but clearly in this case we to him ; for as I know that he is much 
are quite unable to estimate the too clear a thinker not to perceive 
value of this presumption. Conse- the validity of these considerations, 
quently, even assuming a causal con- I am willing to believe that the sub- 
nection between Matter and Human stance of them was omitted from his 
Mind, if there is any, the slightest, essay merely for the sake of brevity ; 
indications supplied by any other but, for the sake of less thoughtful 
facts of experience pointing to the persons, I have deemed it desirable 
existence of a Divine Mind, such in- to state thus clearly that the pre- 
dications allould be allowed as much blem of Theism cannot be solved on 
argumentative weight as they would grounds of Materialism alone. [This 
have had in the absence of the pre- note was written before I had the 
sumption we are considering. Hence advantage of Professor Clifford's 
Professor Clifford's conclusion cannot acquaintance, but I now leave it, as I 
be regarded as valid until all the other leave all other parts of this essay — viz., 
arguments in favour of Theism have as it was originally written. — 1878.] 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 19 

§ 15. Eeturning then to Locke's comparison between 
the certainty of this argument and that which proves the 
sum of the angles of a triangle to he equal to two right- 
angles, I should say that there is a virtual, though not a 
formal, fallacy in his presentation. For mathematical 
science being confessedly but of relative significance, any 
comparison between the degree of certainty attained by 
reasoning upon so transcendental a subject as the present, 
and that of mathematical demonstrations regarding rela- 
tive truth, must be misleading. In the present instance, 
the whole strain of the argument comes upon the adequacy 
of the proposed test of truth, viz., our being able to con- 
ceive it if true. Now, will any one undertake to say that 
this test of truth is of equivalent value when it is ap- 
plied to a triangle and when it is applied to the Deity. 
In the one case we are dealing with a geometrical figure 
of an exceedingly simple type, with which our experience 
is well acquainted, and presenting a very limited number of 
relations for us to contemplate. In the other case we are 
endeavouring to deal with the summum genus of all mys- 
tery, with reference to which experience is quite impos- 
sible, and which in its mention contains all the relations 
that are to us unknown and unknowable. Here, then, is 
the oversight. Because men find conceivability a valid 
test of truth in the affairs of everyday life — as it is easy 
to show a priori that it must be, if our experience has 
been formed under a given code of constant and general 
laws — therefore they conclude that it must be equally 
valid wherever it is applied; forgetting that its validity 
must perforce decrease in proportion to the distance at 
which the test is applied from the sphere of experience.^ 

1 To avoid burdening the text, I angles. In other words, any figure 
have omitted another criticism which which does not exhibit this pro- 
may be made on Locke's argument, perty is not that figure which we 
" Triangle " is a word by which we designate a triangle. Hence, when 
designate a certain figure, one of the Locke says he cannot conceive of a 
properties of which is that the sum triangle which does not present this 
of its angles is equal to two right property, it may be answered that 



20 



THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 



§ 1 6. Upon the whole, then, I think it is transparently 
obvious that the mere fact of our being unable to conceive, 
say, how any disposition of matter and motion could 
possibly give rise to a self-conscious intelligence, in no 
wise warrants us in concluding that for this reason no such 
disposition is possible. The only question would appear 
to be, whether the test whch is here proposed as an 
unconditional criterion of truth should be allowed any the 
smallest degree of credit. Seeing, on the one hand, how 
very fallible the test in question is known to have proved 
itself in many cases of much less speculative difficulty — 
seeing, too, that even now " the philosophy of the con- 
dition proves that things there are which may, nay must, 
be true, of which nevertheless the mind is unable to 
construe to itself the possibility ; " ^ and seeing, on the 



his inability arises merely from the 
fact that any figure which fails to 
present this property is not a figure 
to which the term "triangle" can 
apply. Thus viewed, however, the 
illustration would obviously be ab- 
surd, for the same reason that the 
question of the clown is absurd, 
" Can you think of a horse that is 
just like a cow ? " "What Locke evi- 
dently means is, tbat we cannot con- 
ceive of any geometrical figure which 
presents all the other properties of a 
triangle without also presenting the 
property in question. Now, even ad- 
mitting, with Locke, that it is as 
inconceivable that the entity known 
to us as Matter should possess the 
property of causing thought as it is 
that the figure which we term a tri- 
angle should possess the property of 
containing more than two right angles, 
still it remains, for the purposes of 
Locke's supposed theistic demonstra- 
tion, to prove that it is as inconceiv- 
able for the entity which we call 
Mind not to be due to another Mind, 
as it is for a triangle not to contain 
other than two right angles. But, 
further, even if it were possible to 



prove this, the demonstration would 
make as much against Theism as in 
favour of it ; for if, as the illus- 
tration of the triangle implies, we 
restrict the meaning of the word 
" Mind " to an entity one of whose 
essential qualities is that it should 
be caused by another Mind, the 
words " Supreme and Uncaused 
Mind " involve a contradiction in 
terms, just as much as would the 
words " A square triangle having four 
right angles." It would, therefore, 
seem that if we adhere to Locke's 
argument, and pursue it to its conclu- 
sion, the only logical outcome would 
be this : — Seeing that by the word 
"Mind," I expressly connote the 
quality of derivation from a prior 
Mind, as a quality belonging no less 
essentially to Mind than the quality 
of presenting two right angles belongs 
to a triangle ; therefore, whatever 
other attributes I ascribe to the First 
Cause, I must clearly exclude the 
attribute Mind ; and hence, what- 
ever else such a Cause may be, it 
follows from my argument that it 
certainly is — Not Mind. 
1 Hamilton. 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND, 21 

other hand, that the substance of Mind, whatever it is, 
must necessarily be unknowable ; — seeing these things, if 
any question remains as to whether the test of inconceiva- 
bility should in this case be regarded as having any degree 
of validity at all, there can, I think, be no reasonable doubt 
that such degree should be regarded as of the smallest. 

§ 17. Let us then turn to the other considerations which 
have been supposed to justify the assertion that nothing 
can have caused our mind save another Mind. N'egiecting 
the crushing fact that " it does not account for Mind to 
refer it to another Mind for its origin," let us see what 
positive reasons there are for concluding that no other 
influence than Intelligence can possibly have produced our 
intelligence. 

§ 18. First we may notice the argument which is well 
and tersely presented by Locke, thus : — " Whatsoever is 
first of all things must necessarily contain in it, and actu- 
ally have, at least, all the perfections that can ever after 
exist ; nor can it ever give to another any perfection that 
it hath not actually in itself, or at least in a higher degree ; 
it necessarily follows that the first eternal being cannot 
be Matter." JS'ow, as this presentation is strictly formal, 
I shall first meet it with a formal reply, and this reply 
consists in a direct contradiction. It is simply untrue 
that "whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily 
contain in it, and actually have, at least, all the perfections 
that can after exist ; " or that it can never " give to another 
any perfection that it hath not actually in itself." In a 
sense, no doubt, a cause contains all that is contained in 
its effects ; the latter content being potentially present in 
the former. But to say that a cause already contains 
actually all that its effects may afterwards so contain, is a 
stateiment which logic and common sense alike condemn 
as absurd. 

Nevertheless, although the argument now before us thus 
admits of a childishly easy refutation on strictly formal 
grounds, I suspect that in substance the argument in a 



22 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

general way is often relied upon as one of very consider- 
able weight. Even though it is clearly illogical to say 
that causes cannot give to their effects any perfection 
which they themselves do not actually present, yet it 
seems in a general way incredible that gross matter could 
contain, even potentially, the faculty of thinking. Never- 
theless, this is but to appeal to the argument from Incon- 
ceivability; to do which, even were it here legitimate, 
would, as we have seen, be unavailing. But to appeal to 
the argument from Inconceivability in this case would not 
be legitimate; for we are in possession of an abundant 
analogy to render the supposition in question, not only 
conceivable, but credible. In the words of Mr. Mill, 
" Apart from experience, and arguing on what is called 
reason, that is, on supposed self-evidence, the notion seems 
to be that no causes can give rise to products of a more 
precious or elevated kind than themselves. But this is at 
variance with the known analogies of nature. How vastly 
nobler and more precious, for instance, are the vegetables 
and animals than the soil and manure out of which, and 
by the properties of which, they are raised up ! The 
tendency of all recent speculation is towards the opinion 
that the development of inferior orders of existence into 
superior, the substitution of greater elaboration, and higher 
organisation for lower, is the general rule of nature. 
Whether this is so or not, there are at least in nature a 
multitude of facts bearing that character, and this is 
sufficient for the argument." 

§ 19. We now come to the last of the arguments which, 
so far as I know, have ever been adduced in support of 
the assertion that there can be no other cause of our 
intelligence than another and superior Intelligence. The 
argument is chiefly remarkable for the very great pro- 
minence which was given to it by Sir W. Hamilton. 

This learned and able author says : — " The Deity is not 
an object of immediate contemplation ; as existing and in 
himself, he is beyond our reach ; we can know him only 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 23 

mediately through his works, and are only warranted in 
assuming his existence as a certain kind of cause necessary 
to account for a certain state of things, of whose reality 
our faculties are supposed to inform us. The affirmation 
of a God being thus a regressive inference from the exist- 
ence of a special class of effects to the existence of a 
special character of cause, it is evident that the whole 
argument hinges on the fact, — Does a state of things 
really exist such as is only possible through the agency 
of a Divine Cause ? For if it can be shown that such a 
state of things does not really exist, then our inference to 
the kind of cause requisite to account for it is necessarily 
null. 

"This being understood, I now proceed to show you 
that the class of phsenomena which requires that kind of 
cause we denominate a Deity is exclusively given in the 
phsenomena of mind, — that the phaenomena of matter 
taken by themselves, (you will observe the qualification 
taken by themselves) so far from warranting any infer- 
ence to the existence of a God, would, on the contrary, 
ground even an argument to his negation. 

" If, in man, intelligence be a free power, — in so far as its 
liberty extends, intelligence must be independent of neces- 
sity and matter ; and a power independent of matter neces- 
sarily implies the existence of an immaterial subject, — that 
is, a spirit. If, then, the original independence of intelli- 
gence on matter in the human constitution, in other words, 
if the spirituality of mind in man be supposed a datum of 
observation, in this datum is also given both the condition 
and the proof of a God. Tor we have only to infer, what 
analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same 
relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, 
and the first positive condition of a Deity is established 
in the establishment of the absolute priority of a free 
creative intelligence." ^ 

§ 20. Thus, according to Sir W. Hamilton, the whole 

^ Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 25-31. 



24 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

question as to the being of a God depends upon that as 
to whether our " intelligence be a free power/' — or, as he 
elsewhere states it himself, " Theology is wholly dependent 
upon Psychology, for with the proof of the moral nature 
of man stands or falls the proof of the existence of a 
Deity." It will be observed that I am not at present 
engaged with the legitimacy of this author's decision upon 
the comparative merits of the different arguments in favour 
of Theism : I am merely showing the high opinion he enter- 
tained of the particular argument before us. He posi- 
tively affirms that, unless the freedom of the human will 
be a matter of experience. Atheism is the sole alternative. 
Doubtless most well-informed readers will feel that the 
solitary basis thus provided for Theism is a very insecure 
one, while many such readers will at once conclude that if 
this is the only basis which reason can provide for Theism 
to stand upon. Theism is without any rational basis to 
stand upon at all. I have no hesitation in saying that the 
last-mentioned opinion is the one to which I myself sub- 
scribe, for I am quite unable to understand how any one at 
the present day, and with the most moderate powers of 
abstract thinking, can possibly bring himself to embrace 
the theory of Free-will. I may add that I cannot but 
believe that those who do embrace this theory with an 
honest conviction, must have failed to understand the 
issue to which modern thought has reduced the question. 
Here, however, is not the place to discuss this question. 
It will be sufficient for my purpose to show that even Sir 
W. Hamilton himself considered it a very difficult one ; 
and although he thought upon the whole that the will 
must be free, he nevertheless allowed — nay, insisted — that 
he was unable to conceive how it could be so. Such in- 
ability in itself does not of course show the rree-will 
theory to be untrue ; and I merely point out the circum- 
stance that Hamilton allowed the supposed fact unthink- 
able, in order to show how very precarious, even in his 
eyes, the argument which we are considering must have 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 25 

appeared. Let tis then, for this purpose, contemplate his 
attitude with regard to it a little more closely. He says, 
"It would have been better to show articulately that 
Liberty and Necessity are both incomprehensible, as be- 
yond the limits of legitimate thought ; but that though the 
Free-agency of Man cannot be speculatively proved, so 
neither can it be speculatively disproved ; while we may 
claim for it as a fact of real actuality, though of incon- 
ceivable possibility, the testimony of consciousness, that 
we are morally free, as we are morally accountable for 
our actions. In this manner the whole question of free- 
and bond-will is in theory abolished, leaving, however, 
practically our Liberty, and all the moral instincts of Man 
entire." ^ 

From this passage it is clear that Sir W. Hamilton 
regarded these two counter-theories as of precisely equiva- 
lent value in everything save "the testimony of con- 
sciousness ; " or, as he elsewhere states it, " as equally 
unthinkable, the two counter, the two one-sided, schemes 
are thus theoretically balanced. But, practically, our 
consciousness of the moral law . . . gives a decisive 
preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the doctrine 
of fate." 

But the whole question concerning the freedom of the 
will has now come to be as to whether or not conscious- 
ness does give its verdict on the side of freedom. Sup- 
posing we grant that "we are warranted to rely on a 
deliverance of consciousness, when that deliverance is 
that a thing is, although we may be unable to think thow 
it can be," 2 in this case the question still remains, 
whether our opponents have rightly interpreted the 
deliverance of their consciousness. I, for one, am quite 
persuaded that I never perform any action without some 
appropriate motive, or set of motives, having induced 
me to perform it. However, I am not discussing this 
question, and I have merely made the above quotations 

^ Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 542. 2 j^qq^ q[i ^ p^ ^43. 



26 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

for the purpose of showing that Sir W. Hamilton appears 
to identify the theory of Free-will with the fact that we 
possess a moral sense. He argues throughout as though 
the theory he advocates were the only one that can 
explain a given " fact of real actuality." But no one with 
whom we have to deal questions the fact of our having a 
moral sense ; and to identify this " deliverance of conscious- 
ness " with belief in the theory that volitions are uncaused, 
is, or would now be, merely to abandon the only questions 
in dispute. 

It is very instructive, from this point of view, to observe 
the dilemma into which Hamilton found himself driven 
by this identification of genuine fact with spurious 
theory. He believed that the fact of man possessing an 
ethical faculty could only be explained by the theory that 
man's will was not determined by motives ; for otherwise 
man could not be the author of his own actions. But 
when he considered the matter in its other aspect, he 
found that his theory of Free-will was as little compatible 
with moral responsibility as was the opposing theory of 
" Bond-will ; " for not only did he candidly confess that he 
could not conceive of will as acting without motives, but 
he further allowed the unquestionable truth " that, though 
inconceivable, a motiveless volition would, if conceived, 
be conceived as morally worthless." ^ I say this is very 
instructive, because it shows that in Hamilton's view each 
theory was alike irreconcilable with " the deliverance of 
consciousness," and that he only chose the one in 
preference to the other, because, although not any more 
conceivable a solution, it , seemed to him a more possible 
one.2 

§ 21. Such, then, is the speculative basis on which, 
according to Sir W. Hamilton, our belief in a Deity can 
alone be grounded. 

^ Appendix to Discussions, pp. he devotes to the freedom of the will 
614, 615. in his Examination, does not notice 

2 Mill, in the lengthy chapter which this point. 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 27 

Those who at the present day are still confused enough 
in their notions regarding the Free-will question to suppose 
that any further rational question remains, may here be 
left to ruminate over this 'bolus, and to draw from it such 
nourishment as they can in support of their belief in a 
God ; but to those who can see as plainly as daylight that 
the doctrine of Determinism not only harmonises with all 
the facts of observation, but alone affords a possible con- 
dition for, and a satisfactory explanation of, the existence 
of our ethical faculty, — to such persons the question will 
naturally arise : — '' Although Hamilton was wrong in iden- 
tifying a known fact with a false theory, yet may he not 
have been right in the deductions which he drew from the 
fact ? " In other words, granting that his theory of Free- 
will was wrong, does not his argument from the existence 
of a moral sense in man to the existence of a moral 
Governor of the Universe remain as intact as ever ? Now, 
it is quite true that whatever degree of cogency the argu- 
ment from the presence of the moral sense may at any 
time have had, this degree remains unaffected by the 
explosion of erroneous theories to account for such 
presence. We have, therefore, still to face the fact that 
the moral sense of man undoubtedly exists, 

§ 22. The question we have to determine is, What 
evidence have we to show that the moral part of man was 
created in the image of God; and if there is any such 
evidence, what counter-existence is there to show that the 
moral existence of man may be due to natural causes ? 
In deciding this question, just as in deciding any other 
question of a purely scientific character, we must be guided 
in our examination by the Law of Parcimony ; we must not 
assume the agency of supernatural causes if we can dis- 
cover the agency of natural causes ; neither must we merge 
the supposed mystery directly into the highest mystery, 
until we are quite sure that it does not admit of being proxi- 
mately explained by the action of proximate influences. 

Now, whether or not Mr. Darwin's theory as to the 



28 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

origin and development of the moral sense be considered 
satisfactory, there can, I think, be very little doubt in any 
impartial mind which duly considers the subject, that in 
some way or other the moral sense has been evolved. The 
body of scientific evidence which has now been collected 
in favour of the general theory of evolution is simply 
overwhelming ; and in the presence of so large an analogy, 
it would require a vast amount of contradictory evidence 
to remove the presumption that human conscience, like 
everything else, has been evolved. Now, for my own part, 
I am quite unable to distinguish any such evidence, while, 
on the other hand, in support of the a ^priori presumption 
that conscience has been evolved, I cannot conceal from 
myself that there is a large amount of a posteriori confirma- 
tion. I am quite unable to distinguish anything in my sense 
of right and wrong which I cannot easily conceive to have 
been brought about during the evolution of my intelli- 
gence from lower forms of psychical life. On the con- 
trary, everything that I can find in my sense of right and 
wrong is precisely what I should expect to find on the 
supposition of this sense having been moulded by the 
progressive requirements of social development. Eead in 
the light of evolution, Conscience, in its every detail, is 
deductively explained. 

And, as though there were not sufiicient evidence of 
this kind to justify the conclusion drawn from the theory 
of evolution, the doctrine of utilitarianism — separately 
conceived and separately worked out on altogether 
independent grounds — the doctrine of utilitarianism 
comes in with irresistible force to confirm that a priori 
conclusion by the widest and most unexceptionable of 
inductions.! 

^ If more evidence can be wanted, others) and tlie idea of punishment 

it is supplied in some suggestive facts are presented to the mind together, 

of Psychology. For example, "From and the intense character of the im- 

our earliest childhood, the idea of pressions causes the association be- 

doing wrong (that is, of doing what tween them to attain the highest 

is forbidden, or what is injurious to degree of closeness and intimacy. Is 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 29 

In the supernatural interpretation of the facts, the whole 
stress of the argument comes upon the character of con- 
science as a spontaneously admonishing influence ivhich acts 
independently of our own volition. For it is from this 
character alone that the inference can arise that conscience 
is the delegate of the will of another. Thus, to render the 
whole argument in the singularly beautiful words of Dr. 
Newman : — " If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are 
ashamed, are frightened at transgressing the voice of con- 
science, this implies that there is One to whom we are 
responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims 
upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we feel the same 
tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on 
hurting a mother ; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same 
seeming serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory 
delight, which follows on one receiving praise from a 
father, — we certainly have within us the image of some 
person to whom our love and veneration look, in whose 
smile we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards 
whom we direct our pleadings, in whose anger we waste 
away. These feelings in us are such as require for their 
exciting cause an intelligent being ; we are not affectionate 
towards a stone, nor do we feel shame before a horse or a 
dog; we have no remorse or compunction in breaking 
mere human law. Yet so it is ; conscience emits all these 
painful emotions, confusion, foreboding, self-condemna- 
tion ; and, on the other hand, it sheds upon us a deep 
peace, a sense of security, a resignation, and a hope which 
there is no sensible, no earthly object to elicit. 'The 

it strange, or iiiilike the usual pro- association has been created between, 
cesses of the human mind, that in these directly, without the help of 
these circumstances we should retain any intervening idea. This is quite 
the feeling and forget the reason on enough to make the spontaneous feel- 
which it is grounded? But why do ings of mankind regard punishment 
I speak of forgetting? In most cases and a wrong-doer as naturally fitted 
the reason has never, in our early to each other — as a conjunction appro- 
education, been presented to the priate in itself, independently of any 
mind. The only ideas presented consequences," &c. — Mill, Examina- 
have been those of wrong and tion of Hamilton, p. 599. 
punishment, and an inseparable 



30 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

wicked flees when no one pnrsneth ; ' then why does he 
flee ? whence his terror ? Who is it that he sees in soli- 
tude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his heart ? 
If the cause of these emotions does not belong to'this visible 
world, the Object to which his perception is directed must 
be supernatural and divine ; and thus the phenomena of 
conscience as a dictate avail to impress the imagination 
with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, 
just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive." ^ 

N'ow I have quoted this passage because it seems to me 
to convey in a concise form the whole of the argument 
from Conscience. But how tremendous are the inferences 
which are drawn from the facts ! As the first step in our 
criticism, it is necessary to point out that two very different 
orders of feelings are here treated by Dr. Newman. There 
is first the pure or uncompounded ethical feelings, which 
spring directly from the moral sense alone, and which all 
men experience in varying degrees. And next there are 
what we may term the ethico-theological feelings, which 
can only spring from a blending of the moral sense with 
a belief in a personal God, or other supernatural agents. 
The former class of feelings, or the uncompounded ethical 
class, have exclusive reference to the moral obligations 
that subsist between ourselves and other human beings, 
or sentient organisms. The latter class of feehngs, or the 
ethico-theological class, have reference to the moral obliga- 
tions that are beheved to subsist between ourselves and 
the Deity, or other supernatural beings. Now, in order 
not to lose sight of this all-important distinction, I shall 
criticise Dr. Newman's rendering of the ordinary argument 
from Conscience in each of these two points of views 
separately. To begin, then, with the uncompounded 
ethical feelings. 

Such emotions as attend the operation of conscience in 
those who follow its light alone without any theories as 
to its supernatural origin, are all of the character of reason- 

1 Grammar of Assent, pp. io6, 107. 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 31 

cihU or explicable emotions. Granting that fellow-feeling 
lias been for the benefit of the race, and therefore that it 
has been developed by natural causes, certainly there is 
nothing mysterious in the emotions that attend the violat- 
insr or the foUowino- of the dictates of conscience. For con- 
science is, by this naturalistic supposition, nothing more than 
an organised body of certain psychological elements, which, 
by long inheritance, have come to inform us, by way of intui- 
tive feeling, how we should act for the interests of society ; 
so that, if this hypothesis is correct, there cannot be any- 
thing more mysterious or supernatural in the working of 
conscience than there is in the working of any of our other 
faculties. That the disagreeable feeling of self-reproach, 
as distinguished from religious feeling, should follow upon 
a violation of such an organised body of psychological 
elements, cannot be thought surprising, if it is remem- 
bered that one of these elements is natural fellow-feel- 
ing, and the others the elements which lead us to know 
directly that we have violated the interests of other persons. 
And as regards the mere fact that the working of con- 
science is independent of the will, surely this is not more 
than we find, in varying degrees, to be true of all our 
emotions; and conscience, according to the evolution 
theory, has its root in the emotions. Hence, it is no more 
an argument to say that the irrepressible character of con- 
science refers us to a God of morality, than it would be to say 
that the sometimes resistless force of the ludicrous refers 
us to a god of laughter. Love, again, is an emotion which 
cannot be subdued by volition, and in its tendency to per- 
sist bears just such a striking resemblance to the feelings 
of morality as we should expect to find on the supposition 
of the former having played an important part in the gen- 
esis of the latter. The dictating character of conscience, 
therefore, is clearly in itself of no avail as pointing to a 
superhuman Dictator. Thus, for example, to take Dr. 
Newman's own illustration, why should we feel such tear- 
ful, broken-hearted sorrow on intentionally or carelessly 



32 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

hurting a mother? We see no shadow of a reason for 
resorting to any supernatural hypothesis to explain the 
fact — love between mother and offspring being an essential 
condition to the existence of higher animals. Yet this is 
a simple case of truly conscientious feeling, where the 
thought of any 'personal cause of conscience need not be 
entertained, and is certainly not necessary to explain the 
effects. And similarly with all cases of conscientious feel- 
ing, except in cases where it refers directly to its supposed 
author. But these latter cases, or the ethico-theological 
class of feelings, are in no way surprising. If the moral 
sense has had a natural genesis in the actual relations be- 
tween man and man, as soon as an ideal " image " of " a 
holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive " God is firmly be- 
lieved to have an objective existence, as a matter of course 
moral feelings must become transferred to the relations 
which are believed to obtain between ourselves and this 
most holy God. Indeed, it is these very feelings which, 
in the absence of any proof to the contrary, must be con- 
cluded, in accordance with the law of parcimony, to have 
generated this idea of God as " holy, just," and good. And 
the mere fact that, when the complex system of religious 
belief has once been built up, conscience is strongly wrought 
upon by that belief and its accompanying emotions, is 
surely a fact the very reverse of mysterious. Suppose, for 
the sake of argument, that the moral sense has been 
evolved from the social feelings, and should we not cer- 
tainly expect that, when the belief in a moral and all- seeing 
God is superadded, conscience should be distracted at the 
thought of offending him, and experience a "soothing, 
satisfactory delight " in the belief that we are pleasing 
him? And as to the argument, ''Why does the wicked 
flee when none pursueth ? whence his terror ? " the 
question admits of only too easy an answer. Indeed, the 
form into which the question is thrown would almost seem 
— were it not written by Dr. Newman — to imply a sar- 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 33 

castic reference to the power of superstition. " Who is it 
that," not only Dr. Newman, but the haunted savage, the 
mediaeval sorcerer, or the frightened child, " sees in soli- 
tude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his heart ? " 
Who but the " image " of his own thought ? " If the 
cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible 
world, the Object to which his perception is directed must 
be supernatural and divine." Assuredly; but what an 
inference from what an assumption ! Whether or not the 
moral sense has been developed by natural causes, " these 
emotions" of terror at the thought of offending beings 
" supernatural and divine " are not of such unique occur- 
rence " in the visible world " as to give Dr. Newman the 
monopoly of his particular " Object." With a deeper mean- 
ing, therefore, than he intends may we repeat, " The pheno- 
mena of conscience as a dictate avail to impress the ^ma- 
gination with the picture of a Supreme Governor." But 
criticism here is positively painful. Let it be enough to 
say that those of us who do not already believe in any 
such particular " Object " — be it ghost, shape, demon, or 
deity — ^are strangers, utter and complete, to any such 
supernatural pursuers. The fact, therefore, of these vari- 
ous religious emotions being associated with conscience in 
the minds of theists, can in itself be no proof of Theism, 
seeing that it is the theory of Theism which itself engen- 
ders these emotions; those who do not believe in this 
theory experiencing none of these feelings of personal 
dread, responsibility to an unknown God, and the feelings 
of doing injury to, or of receiving praise from, a parent. 
To such of us the violation of conscience is its own punish- 
ment, as the pursuit of virtue is its own reward. For we 
know that not more certainly than fire will burn, any viola- 
tion of the deeply-rooted feelings of our humanity will 
leave a gaping wound which even time may not always 
heal. And when it is shown us that our natural dread of 
fire is due to a supernatural cause, we may be prepared to 

c 



34 THE ARGUMENT FROM THE 

entertain the argument that our natural dread of sin, as 
distinguished from our dread of God, is likewise due to 
such a cause. But until this can be done we must, as 
reasonable men, whose minds have been trained in the school 
of nature, forbear to allow that the one fact is of any greater 
cogency than the other, so far as the question of a super- 
natural cause of either is concerned. For, as we have 
already seen, the law of parcimony forbids us to ascribe " the 
phenomena of conscience as a dictate " to a supernatural 
cause, until the science of psychology shall have proved that 
they cannot have been due to natural causes. But, as we 
have also seen, the science of psychology is now beginning, 
as quick and thoroughly as can be expected, to prove the 
very converse ; so that the probability is now overwhelm- 
ing that our moral sense, like all our other faculties, has 
been evolved. Therefore, while the burden of proof really 
lies on the side of Theism — or with those who account for 
the natural phenomena of conscience by the hypothesis of 
a supernatural origin — this burden is now being rapidly 
discharged by the opposite side. That is to say, while the 
proofs which are now beginning to substantiate the natu- 
ralistic hypothesis are all in full accord with the ordinary 
lines of scientific explanations, the vague and feeble re- 
flections of those who still maintain that Conscience is evi- 
dence of Deity, are all such as run counter to the very 
truisms of scientific method. 

In the face of all the facts, therefore, I find it impossible 
to recognise as valid any inference which is drawn from 
the existence of our moral sense to the existence of a God ; 
although, of course, all inferences drawn from the exist- 
ence of our moral sense to the character of a God already 
believed to exist remain unaffected by the foregoing con- 
giderations.i 

^ Througliout these considerations the erroneous inferences which are 

I have confined myself to the positive drawn from the good qualities of our 

side of the subject. My argument moral nature, I thought it desirable, 

being of the nature of a criticism on for the sake of clearness, not to bur- 



EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND. 35 

den that argument by the additional tional argument, I think that any 
one as to the source of the evil quali- candid and unbiassed mind must con- 
ties of that nature. This additional elude that, alike in what it is not 
argument, however, will be found as well as in what it is, our moral na- 
briefly stated at the close of my sup- ture points to a natural genesis, as 
plementary essay on Professor Flint's distinguished from a supernatural 
" Theism." On reading that addi- cause. 



( 36 ) 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

§ 23. The argument from Design, as presented by Mill, is 
merely a resuscitation of it as presented by Paley. True 
it is that the logical penetration of the former enabled 
him to perceive that the latter had " put the case much 
too strongly ; " although, even here, he has failed to see 
wherein Paley's error consisted. He says : — " If I found 
a watch on an apparently desolate island, I should indeed 
infer that it had been left there by a human being ; but 
the inference would not be from the marks of design, but 
because I already know by direct experience that watches 
are made by men." Now I submit that this misses the 
whole point of Paley's meaning; for it is evident that 
there would be no argument at all unless this author be 
understood to say what he clearly enough expresses, viz., 
that the evidence of design supposed to be afforded by the 
watch is supposed to be afforded by examination of its 
mechanism only, and not by any previous knowledge as 
to how that particular mechanism called a watch is made. 
Paley, I take it, only chose a watch for his example be- 
cause he knew that no reader would dispute the fact that 
watches are constructed by design : except for the purpose 
of pointing out that mechanism is in some cases admitted 
to be due to intelligence, for all the other purposes of his 
argument he might as well have chosen for his illustration 
any case of mechanism occurring in nature. What^the 
real fallacy in Paley's argument is, is another question, 
and this I shall now endeavour to answer ; for, as Mill's 



THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 37 

argument is clearly the same in kind as that of Paley and 
his numberless followers, in examining the one I am also 
examining the other. 

§ 24. In nature, then, we see innumerable examples 
of apparent design : are these of equal value in testifying 
to the presence of a designing intelligence as are similar 
examples of human contrivance, and if not, why not ? 
The answer to the first of these questions is patent. If 
such examples were of the same value in the one case as 
they are in the other, the existence of a Deity would be, 
as Paley appears to have thought it was, demonstrated by 
the fact. A brief and yet satisfactory answer to the 
second question is not so easy, and we may best approach 
it by assuming the existence of a Deity. If, then, there 
is a God, it by no means follows that every apparent 
contrivance in nature is an actual contrivance, in the 
same sense as is any human contrivance. The eye of a 
vertebrated animal, for instance, exhibits as much ap- 
parent design as does a watch ; but no one — at the present 
day, at least — will undertake to affirm that the evidence of 
divine thought furnished by one example is as conclusive 
as is the evidence of human thought furnished by the 
other — and this even assuming a Deity to exist. Why is 
this ? The reason, I think, is, that we know by our per- 
sonal experience what are our own relations to the material 
world, and to the laws which preside over the action of 
physical forces; while we can have no corresponding 
knowledge of the relations subsisting between the Deity 
and these same objects of our own experience. Hence, 
to suppose that the Deity constructed the eye by any 
such process of thought as we know that men construct 
watches, is to make an assumption not only incapable of 
proof, but destitute of any assignable degree of likeli- 
hood. Take an example. The relation in which a bee 
stands to the external world is to a large extent a matter 
of observation, and, therefore, no one imagines that the 
formation of its scientifically-constructed cells is due to 



38 THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

any profound study on the bee's part. Whatever the 
origin of the cell-making instinct may have been, its 
nature is certainly not the same as it would have been in 
man, supposing him to have had occasion to construct 
honeycombs. It may be said that the requisite calcu- 
lations have been made for the bees by the Deity ; but, 
even if this assumption were true, it would be nothing to 
the point, which is merely that even within the limits of 
the animal kingdom the relations of intelligence to the 
external world are so diverse, that the same results may 
be accomplished by totally different intellectual processes. 
And as this example is parallel to the case on which we 
are engaged in everything save the observability of the 
relations involved, it supplies us with the exact measure 
of the probability we are trying to estimate. Hence it is 
evident that so long as we remain ignorant of the element 
essential to the argument from design in its Paleyerian 
form — viz., knowledge or presumption of the relations sub- 
sisting between an hypothetical Deity and his creation — 
so long must that argument remain, not only unassignably 
weak, but incapable of being strengthened by any number 
of examples similar in kind. 

§ 25. To put the case in another way. The root fallacy 
in Paley's argument consisted in reasoning from a parti- 
cular to an universal. Because he knew that design was 
the cause of adaptation in some cases, and because the 
phenomena of life exhibited more instances of adaptation 
than any other class of phenomena in nature, he pointed 
to these phenomena as affording an exceptional kind of 
proof of the presence in nature of intelligent agency. Yet, 
if it is admitted — and of this, even in Paley's days, there 
was a strong analogical presumption — that the phenomena 
of life are throughout their history as much subject to law 
as are any other phenomena whatsoever, — that the method 
of the divine government, supposing such to exist, is the 
same here as elsewhere ; then nothing can be clearer than 
that any amount of observable adaptation of means to 



THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 39 

ends witHn this class of phenomena cannot afford any 
different kind of evidence of design than is afforded by 
any other class of phenomena whatsoever. Either we 
know the relations of the Deity to his creation, or we do 
not. If we do, then we must know whether or not every 
physical change which occurs in accordance with law — i.e., 
every change occurring within experience, and so, until 
contrary evidence is produced, presumably every change 
occurring beyond experience — was separately planned by 
the Deity. If we do not, then we have no more reason to 
suppose that any one set of physical changes rather than 
another has been separately planned by him, unless we 
could point (as Paley virtually pointed) to one particular 
set of changes and assert, These are not subject to the 
same method of divine government which we observe 
elsewhere, or, in other words, to law. If it is retorted that 
in some way or other all these wonderful adaptations must 
ultimately have been due to intelligence, this is merely to 
shift the argument to a ground which we shall presently 
have to consider : all we are now engaged upon is to show 
that we have no right to found arguments on the assumed 
mode, manner, or process by which the supposed intelligence 
is thought to have operated. We can here see, then, more 
clearly where Paley stumbled. He virtually assumed that 
the relations subsisting between the Deity and the uni- 
verse were such, that the exceptional adaptations met with 
in the organised part of the latter cannot have been due 
to the same intellectual processes as was the rest of the 
universe — or that, if they were, still they yielded better 
evidence of having been due to these processes than does 
the rest of the universe. And it is easy to perceive that 
his error arose from his pre-formed belief in special creation. 
So long as a man regards every living organism which he 
sees as the lineal descendant of a precisely similar organ- 
ism originally struck out by the immediate fiat of Deity, 
so long is he justified in holding his axiom, " Contrivance 
must have had a contriver." For " adaptation " then 



40 THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN, 

becomes to our minds the synonym of " contrivance " — it 
being utterly inconceivable that the numberless adaptations 
found in any living organism could have resulted in any 
other way than by intelligent contrivance, at the time 
when this organism was in the first instance suddenly 
introduced into its complex conditions of life. Still, as 
an argument, this is of course merely reasoning in a circle : 
we adopt a hypothesis which presupposes the existence of 
a Deity as the first step in the proof of his existence. I 
do not say that Paley committed this error expressly, but 
merely that if it had not been for his pre-formed con- 
viction as to the truth of the special-creation theory, he 
would probably not have written his " I^atural Theology." 
§ 26. Thus let us take a case of his own choosing, and 
the one which is adduced by him as typical of "the 
application of the argument." "I know of no better 
method of introducing so large a subject than that of 
comparing a single thing with a single thing ; an eye, for 
example, with a telescope. As far as the examination of 
the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof 
that the eye was made for vision as there is that the 
telescope was made for assisting it. They are both made 
upon the same principles, both being adjusted to the 
laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of 
light are regulated. I speak not of the origin of the laws 
themselves ; but these laws being fixed, the construction 
in both cases is adapted to them. For instance: these 
laws require, in order to produce the same effect, that the 
rays of light, in passing through water into the eye, 
should be refracted by a more convex surface than when 
it passes out of air into the eye. Accordingly we find 
that the eye of a fish, in that part of it called the crystal- 
line lens, is much rounder than the eye of terrestrial 
animals. What plainer manifestation of design can there 
be than this difference ? " But what, let us ask, is the 
proximate cause of this difference? 'The immediate 
volition of the Deity, manifested in. special creation/ 



THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN, 41 

virtually answers Paley ; while we of to-day are able to 
reply, ' The agency of natural laws, to wit, inheritance, 
variation, survival of the fittest, and probably of other 
laws as yet not discovered.' Now, of course, according to 
the former of these two premises, there can be no more 
legitimate conclusion than that the difference in question 
is due to intelligent and special design ; but, according to 
the other premise, it is equally clear that no conclusion 
can be more unwarranted ; for, under the latter view, the 
greater rotundity of the crystalline lens in a fish's eye 
no more exhibits the presence of any special design than 
does the adaptation of a river to the bed which it has 
itself been the means of excavating. "When, therefore, 
Paley goes on to ask : — " How is it possible, under cir- 
cumstances of such close affinity, and under the opera- 
tion of equal evidence, to exclude contrivance from the 
case of the eye, yet to acknowledge the proof of contriv- 
ance having been employed, as the plainest and clearest of 
all propositions, in the case of the telescope ? " the answer 
is sufficiently obvious, namely, that the " evidence " in the 
two cases is not " equal ; " — any more than is the existence, 
say, of the Nile of equal value in point of evidence that 
it was designed for traffic, as is the existence of the Suez 
Canal that it was so designed. And the mere fact that 
the problem of achromatism was solved by " the mind of 
a sagacious optician inquiring how this matter was 
managed in the eye," no more proves that " this could not 
be in the eye without purpose, which suggested to the 
optician the only efi'ectual means of attaining that pur- 
pose," than would the fact, say, of the winnowing of corn 
having suggested the fanning-machine prove that air 
currents were designed for the purpose of eliminating 
chaff from grain. In short, the real substance of the 
argument from Design must eventually merge into that 
which Paley, in the above-quoted passage, expressly passes 
over — viz., "the origin of the laws themselves;" for so 
long as there is any reason to suppose that any apparent 



42 THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

" adaptation " to a certain set of " fixed laws " is itself 
due to the influence of other " fixed laws," so long have 
we as little right to say that the latter set of fixed laws 
exhibit any better indications of intelligent adaptation to 
the former set, than the former do to that of the latter — 
the eye to light, than light to the eye. Hence I conceive 
that Mill is entirely wrong when he says of Paley's 
argument, " It surpasses analogy exactly as induction 
surpasses it," because " the instances chosen are particular 
instances of a circumstance which experience shows to 
have a real connection with an intelligent origin — the fact 
of conspiring to an end." Experience shows us this, but 
it shows us more besides ; it shows us that there is no 
necessary or uniform connection between an "intelligent 
origin " and the fact of apparent " means conspiring to an 
[apparent] end." If the reader will take the trouble to 
compare this quotation just made from Mill, and the long 
train of reasoning that follows, with an admirable illustra- 
tion in Mr. Wallace's " Natural Selection," he will be well 
rewarded by finding all the steps in Mr. Mill's reasoning 
so closely paralleled by the caricature, that but for the 
respective dates of publication, one might have thought 
the latter had an express reference to the former.i True, 
Mr. Mill closes his argument with a brief allusion to the 
" principle of the survival of the fittest," observing that 
" creative forethought is not absolutely the only link by 
which the origin of the wonderful mechanism of the eye 
may be connected with the fact of sight." I am surprised, 
however, that a man of Mr. Mill's penetration did not see 
that whatever view we may take as to " the adequacy of 
this principle (i.e., Natural Selection) to account for such 
truly admirable combinations as some of those in nature," 
the argument from Design is not materially affected. So 

1 The illustration to whicli I refer occupy the lowest grounds, and get 

is that of the watershed of a country broader and deeper as they advance ; 

being precisely adapted to draining pebbles, gravel, and sand all occupy 

purposes. The rivers just fit their the best teleological situations, &c., 

own particular beds : the latter &c. 



■ THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 43 

far as this argument is concerned, the issue is not Design 
versus Natural Selection, but it is Design versus Natural 
Law. By all means, " leaving this remarkable speculation 
{i.e., Mr. Darwin's) to whatever fate the progress of dis- 
covery may have in store for it," and it by no means 
follows that "in the present state of knowledge the 
adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability 
in favour of creation by intelligence." For whatever we 
may think of this special theory as to the mode, there can 
be no longer any reasonable doubt, " in the present state of 
our knowledge," as to the truth of the general theory of 
Evolution ; and the latter, if accepted, is as destructive to 
the argument from Design as would the former be if 
proved. In a word, it is the fact and not the method of 
Evolution which is subversive of Teleology in its Paley- 
erian form. 

§ 27. We have come then to this: — Apparent intel- 
lectual adaptations are perfectly valid indications of 
design, so long as their authorship is known to be 
confined to human intelligence; for then we know 
from experience what are our relations to these laws, 
and so in any given case can argue a posteriori that 
such an adaptation to such a set of laws by such an 
intelligence can only have been due to such a process. 
But when we overstep the limits of experience, we are 
not entitled to argue anything a priori of any other 
intelligence in this respect, even supposing any such 
intelligence to exist. The analogy by which the unknown 
relations are inferred from the known is "infinitely 
precarious ; " seeing that two of the analogous terms — to 
wit, the divine intelligence and the human — may differ 
to an immeasurable extent in their properties — nay, are 
supposed thus to differ, the one being supposed omniscient, 
omnipotent, &c., and the other not. And, as a final step, 
we may now see that the argument from Design, in its last 
resort, resolves itself into a joetitio principii. For, ulti- 
mately, the only point which the analogical argument in 



44 THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

question is adduced to prove is, that the relations subsist- 
ing between an Unknown Cause and certain physical 
forces are so far identical with the relations known to 
subsist between human intelligence and these same forces, 
that similar intellectual processes are required in the two 
cases to account for the production of similar effects — and 
hence that the Unknown Cause is intelligent. But it is 
evident that the analogy itself can have no existence, 
except upon the presupposition that these two sets of 
relations are thus identical. The point which the analogy 
is adduced to prove is therefore postulated by the fact of 
its being adduced at all, and the whole argument resolves 
itself into a case of petitio jprincipii. 



( 45 ) 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS. 

§ 28. Turning now to an important error of Mr. 
Mill's in respect of omission, I firmly believe that all 
competent writers who have ever undertaken to support 
the argument from Design, have been moved to do so by 
their instinctive appreciation of the much more important 
argument, which Mill does not mention at all and which 
we now proceed to consider — the argument from General 
Laws. That is to say, I cannot think that any one compe- 
tent writer ever seriously believed, had he taken time to 
analyse his beliefs, ; that the cogency of his argument 
lay in assuming any knowledge concerning the process of 
divine thought ; he must have really believed that it lay 
entirely in his observation of the product of divine thought 
— or rather, let us say, of divine intelligence. E'ow this 
is the whole difference between the argument from Design 
and the argument from General Laws. The argument 
from Design says, There must be a God, because such and 
such an organic structure must have been due to such and 
such an intellectual process. The argument from General 
Laws says. There must be a God, because such and such an 
organic structure must in some way or other have been ulti- 
mately due to intelligence. Nor does this argument end 
here. Not only must such and such an organic structure 
have been ultimately due to intelligence, but every such 
structure — nay, every phenomenon in the universe — must 
have been the same ; for all phenomena are alike subject to 
the same method of sequence. The argument is thus a 



46 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 

cumulative one ; for as there is no single known exception to 
this universal mode of existence, the united effect of so vast 
a body of evidence is all but irresistible, and its tendency 
is clearly to point us to some one, explanatory cause. The 
scope of this argument is therefore co-extensive with the 
universe ; it draws alike upon all phenomena with which 
experience is acquainted. Eor instance, it contains all the 
phenomena covered by the Design argument, just as a genus 
contains any one of its species; it being manifest, from what 
was said in the last section, that if the general doctrine of 
Evolution is accepted, the argument from Design must of 
necessity merge into that from General Laws. And this 
wide basis, we may be sure, must be the most legitimate 
one whereon to rest an argument in favour of Theism. If 
there is any such thing as such an argument at all, the 
most unassailable field for its display must be the universe 
as a whole, seeing that if we separate any one section of 
the universe from the rest, and suppose that we here 
discover a different kind of testimony to intelligence from 
that which we can discover elsewhere, we may from 
analogy be abundantly sure that on the confines of our 
division there must be second causes and general laws at 
work (whether discoverable or not), which are the imme- 
diate agents in the production of the observed results. 
Of course I do not deny that some classes of phenomena 
afford us more and better proofs of intellectual agency 
than do others, in the sense of the laws in operation being 
more numerous, subtle, and complex ; but it will be seen 
that this is a different interpretation of the evidence from 
that against which I am contending. Thus, if there are 
tokens of divine intention (as distinguished from design) 
to be met with in the eye, — if it is inconceivable that so 
" nice and intricate a structure " should exist without 
intelligence as its ultimate, cause ; then the discovery of 
natural selection, or of any other law, as the manner in 
which this intelligence wrought in no wise attenuates the 
proof as to the fact of an intelligent cause. On the con- 



THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 47 

trary, it tends rather to confirm it ; for, besides the evidence 
before existing, there is added that which arises from the 
conformity of the method to that which is observable in 
the rest of the universe. 

Thus, notwithstanding what Hamilton, Chalmers, and 
others have said, I cannot but feel that the ubiquitous 
action of general laws is, of all facts supplied by experi- 
ence, the most cogent in its bearing upon teleology. If 
perpetual and uninterrupted uniformity of method does 
not indicate the existence of a presiding intelligence, it 
becomes a question whether any other kind of method 
— short of the intelligently miraculous — could possibly do 
so; seeing that the further the divine modus operandi 
(supposing such to exist) were removed from absolute 
uniformity, the greater would be the room for our 
interpreting it as mere fortuity. But forasmuch as the 
progress of science has shown that within experience the 
method of the Supreme Causality is absolutely uniform, 
the hypothesis of fortuity is rendered irrational ; and let 
us think of this Supreme Causality as we may, the fact 
remains that from it there emanates a directive influence 
of uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous 
magnitude and exact precision, worthy of our highest 
possible conceptions of Deity. 

§ 29. Had it been my lot to have lived in the last 
generation, I doubt not that I should have regarded the 
foreo^oinsj considerations as final : I should have concluded 
that there was an overwhelming balance of rational pro- 
bability in favour of Theism ; and I think I should also 
have insisted that this balance of rational probability 
would require to continue as it was till the end of time. I 
should have maintained, in some such words as the follow- 
ing, in which the Eev. Baden Powell conveys this argu- 
ment : — " The very essence of the whole argument is the 
invariable preservation of the principle of order: not 
necessarily such as we can directly recognise, but the 
universal conviction of the unfailing subordination of 



48 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 

everything to some grand principles of law, however im- 
perfectly apprehended in our partial conceptions, and the 
successive subordination of such laws to others of still 
higher generality, to an extent transcending our concep- 
tions, and constituting the true chain of universal causa- 
tion which culminates in the sublime conception of the 
Cosmos. 

" It is in immediate connection with this enlarged view 
of universal immutable natural order that I have regarded 
the narrow notions of those who obscure the sublime pros- 
pect by imagining so unworthy an idea as that of occa- 
sional interruptions in the physical economy of the world. 

" The only instance considered was that of the alleged 
sudden supernatural origination of new species of organised 
beings in remote geological epochs. It is in relation to 
the broad principle of law, if once rightly apprehended, 
that such inferences are seen to be wholly unwarranted 
by science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and in- 
admissible in philosophy ; while, even in those instances 
properly understood, the real scientific conclusions of the 
invariable and indissoluble chain of causation stand vindi- 
cated in the sublime contemplations with which they are 
thus associated. 

" To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the 
one essential requisite is to have obtained a complete and 
satisfactory grasp of this one grand 'princi^ple of law per- 
vading nature, or rather constituting the very idea of 
nature ; — which forms the vital essence of the whole of 
inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher 
inferences from the inductive study of natural causes 
which are the vindications of a supreme intelligence and 
a moral cause. 

" The whole of the ensuing discussion must standyr fall 
with the admission of this grand principle. Those who are 
not prepared to embrace it in its full extent may probably 
not accept the conclusions ; but they must be sent back 
to the school of inductive science, where alone it must be 



THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 49 

independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with 
the mind of the student in the first instance. 

" On the slightest consideration of the nature, the 
foundations, and general results of inductive science, . . . 
we recognise the powers of intellect fitly employed in the 
study of nature, . . . pre-eminently leading us to per- 
ceive in nature, and in the invariable and universal 
constancy of its laws, the indications of universal, un- 
changeable, and recondite arrangement, dependence, and 
connection in reason, . . . 

" We thus see the importance of taking a more enlarged 
view of the great argument of natural theology ; and the 
necessity for so doing becomes the more apparent when 
we reflect on the injury to which these sublime inferences 
are exposed from the narrow and unworthy form in which 
the reasoning has been too often conducted. . . . 

" The satisfactory view of the whole case can only be 
found in those more enlarged conceptions which are 
furnished by the grand contemplation of cosmical order 
and unity, and which do not refer to inferences from the 
past, but to proofs of ^he ever-present mind and reason in 
nature. 

" If we read a book which it requires much thought and 
exercise of reason to understand, but which we find dis- 
closes more and more truth and reason as we proceed in 
the study, and contains clearly more than we can at 
present comprehend, then undeniably we properly say 
that thought and reason exist in that hook irrespectively of 
our minds, and equally so of any question as to its author 
or origin. Such a book confessedly exists, and is ever 
open to us in the natural world. Or, to put the case 
under a slightly different form: — When the astronomer, 
the physicist, the geologist, or the naturalist notes down 
a series of observed facts or measured dates, he is not an 
author expressing his own ideas, — he is a mere amanuensis 
taking down the dictations of nature : his observation 
book is the record of the thoughts of another mind : he 

D 



50 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 

has but set down literally what he himself does not under- 
stand, or only very imperfectly. On further examination, 
and after deep and anxious study, he perhaps begins to 
decipher the meaning, by perceiving some law which gives 
a signification to the facts ; and the further he pursues the 
investigation up to any more comprehensive theory, the 
more fully he perceives that there is a higher reason, of 
which his own is but the humbler interpreter, and into 
whose depths he may penetrate continually further, to dis- 
cover yet more profound and invariable order and system, 
always indicating still deeper and more hidden abysses 
yet unfathomed, but throughout which he is assured the 
same recondite and immutable arrangement ever prevails. 

" That which requires thought and reason to understand 
must be itself thought and reason. That which mind 
alone can investigate or express must be itself mind. 
And if the highest conception attained is but partial, then 
the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind and 
reason of the student. If the more it be studied the more 
vast and complex is the necessary connection in reason 
disclosed, then the more evident is the vast extent and 
compass of the intelligence thus partially manifested, and 
its reality, as existing in the immutably connected order of 
objects examined, independently of the mind of the investi- 
gator. 

" But considerations of this kind, just and transcen- 
dently important as they are in themselves, give us no aid 
in any inquiry into the origin of the order of things thus 
investigated, or the nature or other attributes of the mind 
evinced in them. 

" The real argument for universal intelligence, manifested 
in the universality of order and law in the material world, 
is very different from any attempt to give a form to our 
conceptions, even by the language of analogy, as to the 
nature or mode of existence or operation of that intelligence 
\i.e., as I have stated the case, the argument can only rest 
on a study of the products, as distinguished from the pro- 



THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 51 

ce^sses of such intelligence] : and still more different from 
any extension of our inference from what is to what may 
have teen, from jyresent order to a supposed origination, 
first adjustment, or planning of that order. 

" By keeping these distinctions steadily in view, we 
appreciate properly both the limits and the extent and 
compass of what we may appropriately call COSMO- 

THEOLOGY." ^ 

I have quoted these passages at length, because they 
convey in a more forcible, guarded, and accurate manner 
than any others with which I am acquainted, the 
strictly rational standing of this great subject prior to 
the date at which the above-quoted passage was written. 
Therefore, as I have said, if it had been my lot to have 
lived in the last generation, I should certainlv have rested 
in these "sublime conceptions " as in an argument supreme 
and irrefutable. I should have felt that the progi'ess of 
physical knowledge could never exert any other influence 
on Theism than that of ever tending more and more to con- 
firm that magnificent belief, by continuously expanding our 
human thoughts into progressively advancing conceptions, 
ever grander and yet more grand, of that tremendous Origin 
of Things — the Mind of God. Such would have been my 
hope — such would have been my prayer. But now, how 
changed ! iN'ever in the history of man has so terrific a 
calamity befallen the race as that which all who look 
may now behold advancing as a deluge, black with de- 
struction, resistless in might, uprooting our most cherished 
hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and burying our 
highest life in mindless desolation. Science, whom erst- 
while we thought a very Angel of God, pointing to that 
great barrier of Law, and proclaiming to the restless sea of 
changing doubt, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, 
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed," — even Science 
has now herself thrown down this trusted barrier; the 

1 •' Order of Nature," by the Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.E.S., &c., 1859, 
pp. 228-241. 



52 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 

flood-gates of infidelity are open, and Atheism overwhelm- 
ing is upon us. 

§ 30. All and every law follows as a necessary conse- 
quence from the persistence of force and the primary 
qualities of matter, l That this must be so is evident if 
we consider that, were it not so, force could not be per- 
manent nor matter constant. For instance, if action and 
reaction were not invariably equal and opposite, force 
would not be invariably persistent, seeing that in no case 
can the formula fail, unless some one or other of the forces 
concerned, or parts of them, disappear. And as with a 
simple law of this kind, so with every other natural law 
and inter-operation of laws, howsoever complex such inter- 
operation may be ; for it is manifest that if in any case 
similar antecedents did not determine similar consequents, 
on one or other of these occasions some quantum of force, 
or of matter, or of both, must have disappeared — or, which 
is the same thing, the law of causation cannot have been 
constant Every natural law, therefore, may be defined 
as the formula of a sequence, which must either ensue 
upon certain forces of a given intensity impinging upon 
certain given quantities, kinds, and forms of matter, or 

1 1 think it desirable to state that I in a discussion of this kind, provided 
perceived this great truth before I was that the terms are universally under- 
aware that it had been perceived also stood to mean what they are intended 
by Mr. Spencer. His statement of to mean ; and I think that the sig- 
it now occurs in the short chapter nification which Mr. Spencer attaches 
of First Principles entitled "Rela- to his term, " persistence of force," is 
tio^s between Forces.'' So far as I sufficiently precise. Therefore, adopt- 
am able to ascertain, no one has ing his usage, whenever throughout 
hitherto considered this important the following pages I speak of force as 
doctrine in its immediate relation to persisting, what I intend to be un- 
the question of Theism. derstood is, that there is a something 

In using the term " persistence of — call it force, or energy, or x — 

force," I am aware that I am using v^hich, so far as experience or imagi- 

a term which is not unopen to nation can extend, is, in its relation 

criticism. But as Mr. Spencer's to us, ubiquitous and illimitable ; or, 

writings have brought this term into in other words, that it universally 

such general use among speculative presents the property of permanence, 

thinkers, it seemed to me undesirable (See, for a more detailed explanation, 

to modify it. Questions of mere ter- supplementary essay " On the Final 

minology are without any importance Mystery of Things.") 



THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 53 

else, by not ensuing, prove that the force or the matter 
concerned were not of a permanent nature. 

§ 31. The argument, then, which was elaborated in 
§ 29, and which has so long and so generally received 
the popular sanction in the common-sense epitome, 
that in the last record there must be mind in external 
nature, since " that which it requires thought and reason 
to understand must itself be thought and reason," — this 
argument, I say, must now for ever be abandoned by 
reasonable men. E'o doubt it would be easy to point to 
several speculative thinkers who have previously com- 
bated this argument,^ and from this fact some readers will 
perhaps be inclined to judge, from a false analogy, that as 
the argument in question has withstood previous assaults, 
it need not necessarily succumb to the present one. Be 
it observed, however, that the present assault differs from 
all previous assaults, just as demonstration differs from 
speculation. What has hitherto been but mere guess and 
unwarrantable assertion has now become a matter of the 
greatest certainty. That the argument from General Laws 
is a futile argument, is no longer a matter of unverifiable 
opinion : it is as sure as is the most fundamental axiom of 
science. That the argument will long remain in illogical 
minds, I doubt not ; but that it is from henceforth quite 
inadmissible in accurate thinking, there can be no ques- 
tion. For the sake, however, of impressing this fact still 
more strongly upon such readers as have been accustomed 
to rely upon this argument, and so find, it difficult thus 

1 Hamilton may here be especially the opportunity of alluding to this 
noticed, because he went so far as to remarkable feature in Sir William 
maintain that the phenomena of the Hamilton's philosophy, showing as 
external world, taken by themselves, it does that same prophetic fore- 
would ground a valid argument to stalling of the results which have 
the negation of God, Although I since followed from the discovery of 
cannot but think that this position the conservation of energy, as was 
was a conspicuously irrational one shown by his no less remarkable 
for any competent thioker to occupy theory of causation. (See supplemen- 
before the scientific doctrine of the tary essay "On the Final Mystery of 
correlation of the forces had been Things.") 
enunciated, nevertheless I cannot lose 



54 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 

abruptly to reverse the whole current of their thoughts, 
— for the sake of such, I shall here add a few remarks with 
the view of facilitating the conception of an universal 
Order existing independently of Mind. 

§ 32. Interpreting the mazy nexus of phenomena only 
by the facts which science has revealed, and what con- 
clusion are we driven to accept ? Clearly, looking to 
what has been said in the last two sections, that from the 
time when the process of evolution first began, — from the 
time before the condensation of the nebula had showed 
any signs of commencing, — every subsequent change or 
event of evolution was necessarily hound to ensue; else 
force and matter have not been persistent. How then, 
it will be asked, did the vast nexus of natural laws 
which is now observable ever begin or continue to be ? 
In this way. When the first womb of things was preg- 
nant with all the future, there would probably have been 
existent at any rate not more than one of the formulae 
which we now call natural laws. This one law, of course, 
would have been the law of gravitation. Here we may 
take our stand. It does not signify whether there ever 
was a time when gravitation was not, — i.e., if ever there 
was a time when matter, as we now know it, was not in ex- 
istence ; — for if there ever was such a time, there is no 
reason to doubt, but every reason to conclude, that the 
evolution of matter, as we now know it, was accomplished 
in accordance with law. Similarly, we are not concerned 
with the question as to how the law of gravitation came 
to be associated with matter; for it is overwhelmingly 
probable, from the extent of the analogy, that if our know- 
ledge concerning molecular physics were sufficiently great, 
the existence of the law in question would be found to 
follow as a necessary deduction from the primary qualities 
of matter and force, just as we can now see that, when 
present, its peculiar quantitative action necessarily follows 
from the primary qualities of space. 

Starting, then, with these data, — matter, force, and the 



■ THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 55 

law of gravitation, — what must^ happen? "We have the 
stronc^est scientific reason to believe that the matter of 
the solar system primordially existed in a highly diffused 
or nebulous form. By mutual gravitation, therefore, all 
the substance of the nebula must have begun to concen- 
trate upon itself, or to condense. Now, from this point 
onwards, I wish it to be clearly understood that the mere 
consideration of the supposed facts not admitting of 
scientific proof, or of scientific explanation if true, in no 
wise affects the certainty of the doctrine which these 
facts are here adduced to establish. Eully granting that 
the alleged facts are not beyond dispute, and that, even 
if true, innumerable other unknown and unknowable facts 
must have been associated with them — fully admitting, 
in short, that our ideas concerning the genesis of the solar 
system are of the crudest and least trustworthy character ; 
still, if it be admitted, what at the present day only 
ignorance or prejudice can deny, viz., that, as a whole, 
evolution has been the method of the universe ; then it 
follows that the doctrine here contended for is as certainly 
true as it would be were we fully acquainted with every 
cause and every change which has acted and ensued 
throughout the whole process of the genesis of things. 

Now, bearing this caveat in mind, we have next to ob- 
serve that when once the nebula began to condense, new 
relations among its constituent parts would, for this reason, 
begin to be established. " Given a rare and widely dif- 
fused mass of nebulous matter, . . . what are the suc- 
cessive changes that will take place? Mutual gravita- 
tion will approximate its*atoms, but their approximation 
will be opposed by atomic repulsion, the overcoming of 
which implies the evolution of heat." That is to say, the 
condensation of the nebula as a whole of necessity implies 
at least the origination of these new material and dyna- 
mical relations among its constituent parts. " As fast as 
this heat partially escapes by radiation, further approxima- 
tion will take place, attended by further evolution of heat. 



56 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS. 

and so on continuously: tlie processes not occurring 
separately, as here described, but simultaneously, unin- 
terruptedly, and with, increasing activity." Hence the 
newly established relations continuously acquire new 
increments of intensity. But now observe a more impor- 
tant point. The previous essential conditions remaining 
unaltered — viz., the persistence of matter and force, as 
well as, or rather let us say and consequently, the law of 
gravitation — these conditions, I say, remaining constant, 
and the newly established relations would necessarily of 
themselms give origin to new laws. For whenever two 
given quantities of force and matter met in one of the 
novel relations, they would of necessity give rise to novel 
effects; and whenever, on any future occasion, similar 
quantities of force and matter again so met, precisely 
similar effects would of necessity require to occur: but 
the occurrence of similar effects under similar conditions 
is all that we mean by a natural law. 

Continuing, then, our quotation from Mr. Herbert 
Spencer's terse and lucid exposition of the nebular theory, 
we find this doctrine virtually embodied in the next 
sentences: — ^" Eventually this slow movement of the 
atoms towards their common centre of gravity will bring 
about phenomena of another order. 

" Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, 
it will happen that, when the nebulous mass has reached 
a particular stage of condensation — when its internally 
situated atoms have approached to within certain dis- 
tances, have generated a certain amount of heat, and are 
subject to a certain mutual pressure (the heat and pressure 
increasing as the aggregation progresses), some of them 
will suddenly enter into chemical union. Whether the 
binary atoms so produced be of kinds such as we know, 
which is possible, or whether they be of kinds simpler 
than any we know, which is more probable, matters not 
to the argument. It suffices that molecular combinations 
of some species will finally take place." We have, then, 
here a new and important change of relations. Matter, 



THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS, 57 

primordially uniform, has itself become heterogeneous ; 
and in as many places as it has thus changed its state, it 
must, in virtue of the fact, give rise to other hitherto novel 
relations, and so, in many cases, to new laws.^ 

It would be tedious and unnecessary to trace this 
genesis of natural law any further : indeed, it would be 
quite impossible so to trace it for any considerable 
distance without feeling that the ever-multiplying mazes 
of relations renders all speculation as to the actual 
processes quite useless. This fact, however, as before 
insisted, in no wise affects the only doctrine which I 
here enunciate — viz., that the self-generation of natural 
law is a necessary corollary from the persistence of matter 
and force. And that this must be so is now, I hope, 
sufficiently evident. Just as in the first dawn of things, 
when the proto-binary compounds of matter gave rise to 
new relations together with their appropriate laws, so 
throughout the whole process of evolution, as often as 
matter acquired a hitherto novel state, or in one of its 
old states entered into hitherto novel relations, so often 
would non-existent or even impossible laws become at 
once possible and necessary. And in this way I cannot 
see that there is any reason to stop until we arrive at all 
the marvellous complexity of things as they are. For 
aught that speculative reason can ever from henceforth 
show to the contrary, the evolution of all the diverse 
phenomena of inorganic nature, of life, and of mind, 
appears to be as necessary and as seK-determined as is 
the being of that mysterious Something which is Every- 
thing, — the Entity we must all believe in, which without 
condition and beyond relation holds its existence in 
itself. 

§ 33. Does it still seem incredible that, notwithstanding 
it requires mental processes to interpret external nature, 
external nature may nevertheless be destitute of mind ? 
Then let us look at the subject on its obverse aspect. 

1 [Mr. N. Lockyer's work is now supplying important evidence on these 
points. — 1878.] 



58 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS, 

According to the theory of evolution — which, be it 
always remembered, is no mere gratuitous supposition, 
but a genuine scientific theory — human intelligence, like 
everything else, has been evolved. Now in what does the 
evolution of intelligence consist ? Any one acquainted 
with the writings of our great philosopher can have no 
hesitation in answering : Clearly and only in the establish- 
ment of more and more numerous and complex internal 
or psychological relations. In other words, the law of 
intelligence being "that the strengths of the inner co- 
hesions between psychical states must be proportionate to 
the persistences of the outer relations symbolised," it 
follows that the development of intelligence is " secured 
by the one simple principle that experience of the outer 
relations j9roc^2^ces inner cohesions, and makes the inner 
cohesions strong in proportion as the outer relations are 
persistent." Now the question before us at present is 
merely this : — Must we not infer that these outer relations 
are regulated by mind, seeing that order is undoubtedly 
apparent among them, and that it requires mental pro- 
cesses on our part to interpret this order ? The only 
legitimate answer to this question is, that these outer 
relations may be regulated by mind, but that, in view of 
the evolution theory, we are certainly not entitled to infer 
that they are so regulated, merely because it requires 
mental processes on our part to interpret their orderly 
character. For if it is true that the human mind was 
itseK evolved by these outer relations — ever continuously 
moulded into conformity with them as the prime condi- 
tion of its existence — then its process of interpreting 
them is but reflecting (as it were) in consciousness these 
outer relations by which the inner ones were originally 
produced. Granting that, as a matter of fact, an objective 
macrocosm exists, and if we can prove or render probable 
that this objective macrocosm is of itself sufficient to 
evolve a subjective microcosm, I do not see any the 
faintest reason for the latter to conclude that a self- 



THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS. 59 

conscious intelligence is inherent in the former, merely 
because it is able to trace in the macrocosm some of those 
orderly objective relations by which its own corresponding 
subjective relations were originally produced. If it is 
said that it is impossible to conceive how, apart from 
mind, the orderly objective relations themselves can ever 
have originated, I reply that this is merely to shift the 
ground of discussion to that which occupied us in the last 
section : all we are now engaged upon is, — Granting that 
the existence of such orderly relations is actual, whether 
with or without mind to account for them ; and granting 
also that these relations are of themselves sufficient to pro- 
duce corresponding subjective relations ; then the mere 
fact of our conscious intellisrence beinoj able to discover 
numerous and complex outer relations answering to those 
which they themselves have caused in our intelligence, 
does not warrant the latter in concluding that the causal 
connection between intelligence and non-intelligence has 
ever been reversed — that these outer relations in turn are 
caused by a similar conscious intelligence. How such a 
thing as a conscious intelligence is possible is another and 
wholly unanswerable question (though not more so than 
that as to the existence of force and matter, and would 
not be rendered less so by merging the fact in a hypothe- 
tical Deity) ; but granting, as we must, that such an 
entity does exist, and supposing it to have been evolved 
by natural causes, then it would appear incontestably 
to follow, that whether or not objective existence is pre- 
sided over by objective mind, our subjective mind would 
alike and equally require to read in the facts of the ex- 
ternal world an indication, whether true or false, of some 
such presiding agency. The subjective mind being, by 
the supposition, but the obverse aspect of the sum total of 
such among objective relations as have had a share in its 
production, when, as in observation and reflection, this 
obverse aspect is again inverted upon its die, it naturally 
fits more or less exactly into all the prints. 



6o THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS, 

§ 34. This last illustration, however, serves to introduce 
us to another point. The supposed evidence from which 
the existence of mind in nature is inferred does 
not always depend upon such minute correspondences 
between subjective method and objective method as the 
illustration suggests. Every natural theologian has 
experienced more or less difficulty in explaining the fact, 
that while there, is a tolerably general similarity between 
the contrivances due to human thought and the apparent 
contrivances in nature which he regards as due to divine 
thought, the similarity is nevertheless only general. For 
instance, if a man has occasion to devise any artificial 
appliance, he does so with the least possible cost of labour 
to himself, and with the least possible expenditure of 
material. Yet it is obvious that in nature as a whole 
no such economic considerations obtain. Doubtless by 
superficial minds this assertion will be met at first with 
an indignant denial: they have been accustomed to 
accumulate instances of this very principle of economy in 
nature ; perhaps written about it in books, and illustrated 
it in lectures, — totally ignoring the fact that the instances 
of economy in nature bear no proportion at all to the in- 
stances of prodigality. Conceive of the force which is 
being quite uselessly expended by all the wind-currents 
which are at this moment blowing over the face of 
Europe. Imagine the energy that must have been dis- 
sipated during the secular cooling of this single planet. 
Feebly try to think of what the sun is radiating into 
space. If it is retorted that we are incompetent to judge 
of the purposes of the Almighty, I reply that this is but 
to abandon the argument from economy whenever it is 
found untenable : we presume to be competent judges of 
almighty purposes so long as they appear to imitate our 
own ; but so soon as there is any divergence observable, 
we change front. By thus selecting all the instances of 
economy in nature, and disregarding all the vastly greater 
instances of reckless waste, we are merely laying ourselves 



THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LA WS. 6i 

open to the charge of an unfair eclecticism. And this 
formal refutation of the argument from economy admits 
of being further justified in a strikingly substantial 
manner; for if all the examples of economy in nature 
that were ever observed, or admit being observed, were 
collected into one view, I undertake to affirm that, without 
exception, they would be found to marshal themselves in 
one great company — the subjects whose law is survival of 
the fittest. One question only will I here ask. Is it 
possible at the present day for any degree of prejudice, 
after due consideration, to withstand the fact that the 
solitary exceptions to the universal prodigality so pain- 
fully conspicuous in nature are to be found where there 
is also to be found a full and adequate physical explana- 
tion of their occurrence ? 

But, again, prodigality is only one of several particulars 
wherein the modes and the means of the supposed 
divine intelligence differ from those of its human counter- 
part. Comparative anatomists can point to organic 
structures which are far from being theoretically perfect : 
even the mind of man in these cases, notwithstanding 
its confessed deficiencies in respect both of cognitive and 
cogitative powers, is competent to suggest improvements to 
an intelligence supposed to be omniscient and all- wise ! 
And what shall we say of the numerous cases in which 
the supposed purposes of this intelligence could have been 
attained by other and less roundabout means ? In short, 
not needlessly to prolong discussion, it is admitted, even 
by natural theologians themselves, that the difficulties of 
reconciling, even approximately, the supposed processes of 
divine thought with the known processes of human 
thought are quite insuperable. The fact is expressed by 
such writers in various ways, — e.g., that it would be pre- 
sumptuous in man to expect complete conformity in all 
cases ; that the counsels of God are past finding out ; that 
his ways are not as our ways, and so on. Observing only, 
as before, that in thus ignoring adverse cases natural 



62 THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS. 

theologians are guilty of an unfair eclecticism, it is evident 
that all such expressions concede the fact, that even in 
those provinces of nature where the evidence of super- 
human intelligence appears most plain, the resemblance of 
its apparent products to those of human intelligence con- 
sists in a general approximation of method rather than 
in any precise similarity of particulars: the likeness is 
generic rather than specific. 

[N^ow this is exactly what we should expect to be the 
case, if the similarity in question be due to the cause 
which the present section endeavours to set forth. If all 
natural laws are self-evolved, and if human intelligence is 
but a subjective photograph of certain among their inter- 
relations, it seems but natural that when this photograph 
compares itself with the whole external world from parts 
of which it was taken, its subjective lights and shadows 
should be found to correspond with some of the objective 
lights and shadows much more perfectly than with others. 
Still there would doubtless be sufficient general conformity 
to lead the thinking photograph to conclude that the great 
world of objective reality, instead of being the cause of 
such conformity as exists, was itself the effect of some 
common cause, — that it too was of the nature of a pic- 
ture. Dropping the figure, if it is true that human 
intelligence has been evolved by natural law, then in 
view of all that has been said it must now, I think, be 
tolerably apparent, that as hy the hypothesis human intelli- 
gence has always teen required to think and to act in con- 
formity with law, human intelligence must at last he in 
danger of confusing or identifying the fact of action in 
conformity with law with the existence and the action of a 
self-conscious intelligence. Beading then in external nature 
innumerable examples of action in conformity with law, 
human intelligence falls back upon the unwarrantable iden- 
tification, and out of the hare fact that law exists in nature 
concludes that beyond nature there is an Intelligent Law- 
giver. 



■ THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS. 63 

§ 35. From what has "been said in the last five sections, 
it manifestly follows that all the varied phenomena of the 
■universe not only may, but must, depend upon the persist- 
ence of force and the primary qualities of matter.^ Be it 
remembered that the object of the last three sections was 
merely to ''facilitate, conception " of the fact that it does 
not at all follow, because the phenomena of external 
nature admit of being intelligently inquired into, there- 
fore they are due to an intelligent cause. The last three 
sections are hence in a manner parenthetical, and it is of 
comparatively little importance whether or not they have 
been successful in their object; for, from what went 
before, it is abundantly manifest that, whether or not the 
subjective side of the question admits of satisfactory 
elucidation, there can be no doubt that the objective side 
of it is as certain as are the fundamental axioms of science. 
It does not admit of one moment's questioning that it is as 
certainly true that all the exquisite beauty and melodious 
harmony of nature follow as necessarily and as inevitably 
from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of 
matter, as it is certainly true that force is persistent, or 
that matter is extended and impenetrable. No doubt this 
generalisation is too vast to be adequately conceived, but 
there can be equally little doubt that it is necessarily true. 
If matter and force have been eternal, so far as human 
mind can soar it can discover no need of a superior mind 
to explain the varied phenomena of existence. Man has 
truly become in a new sense the measure of the universe, 
and in this the latest and most appalling of his soundings, 
indications are returned from the infinite voids of space 
and time by which he is surrounded, that his intelligence, 
with all its noble capacities for love and adoration, is yet 
alone— destitute of kith or kin in all this universe of being. 

1 It will of course be observed that if matter and force are identical, 
the unification is complete. 



( 64 ) 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO 
THE BEING OF A GOD. 

§ 36. But the discussion must not end here. Inexorable 
logic has forced ns to conclude that, viewing the question 
as to the existence of a God only by the light which 
modern science has shed upon it, there no longer appears 
to be any semblance of an argument in its favour. Let us 
then turn upon science herself, and question her right to 
be our sole guide in this matter. Undoubtedly we have 
no alternative but to conclude that the hypothesis of 
mind in nature is now logically proved to be as certainly 
superfluous is the very basis of all science is certainly 
true. There can no longer be any more doubt that the 
existence of a G-od is wholly unnecessary to explain any of 
the phenomena of the universe, than there is doubt that 
if I leave go of my pen it will fall upon the table. Nay, 
the doubt is even less than this, because while the 
knowledge that my pen will fall if I allow it to do so is 
founded chiefly upon empirical knowledge (I could not 
predict with d priori certainty that it would so fall, for 
the pen might be in an electrical state, or subject to some 
set of unknown natural laws antagonistic to gravity), 
the knowledge that a Deity is superfluous as an explana- 
tion of anything, being grounded on the doctrine of the 
persistence of force, is grounded on an a priori necessity 
of reason — i.e., if this fact were not so, our science, our 
thought, our very existence itself, would be scientifically 
impossible. 



QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD. 65 

But now, having thus stated the case as strongly as I 
am able, it remains to question how far the authority of 
science extends. Even our knowledge. of the persistence 
of force and of the primary qualities of matter is but of 
relative significance. Deeper than the foundations of our 
experience, " deeper than demonstration — deeper even 
than definite cognition, — deep as the very nature of 
mind," ^ are these the most ultimate of known truths ; but 
where from this is our warrant for concluding with 
certainty that these known truths are everywhere and 
eternally true? It will be said that there is a strong 
analogical probability. Perhaps so, but of this next: 
I am not now speaking of probability ; I am speak- 
ing of certainty ; and unless we deny the doctrine of 
the relativity of knowledge, we cannot but conclude that 
there is no absolute certainty in this case. As I deem 
this consideration one of great importance, I shall pro- 
ceed to develop it at some length. It will be observed, 
then, that the consideration really amounts to this : — 
Although it must on all hands be admitted that the fact 
of the theistic hypothesis not being required to explain 
any of the phenomena of nature is a fact which has been 
demonstrated scientifically, nevertheless it must likewise 
on all hands be admitted that this fact has not, and cannot 
be, demonstrated logically. Or thus, although it is un- 
questionably true that so far as science can penetrate she 
cannot discern any speculative necessity for a God, it may 
nevertheless be true that if science could penetrate further 
she might discern some such necessity. Now the present 
discussion would clearly be incomplete if it neglected to 
define as carefully this the logical standing of our subject, 
as it has hitherto endeavoured to define its scientific 
standing. As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we 
must altogether quit the region of experience, and, ignoring 
even the very foundations of science and so all the most 
certain of relative truths, pass into the transcendental 

1 Herbert Spencer. 

E 



66 THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE 

region of purely formal considerations. In this region 
theist and atheist must alike consent to forego all their 
individual predilections, and, after regarding the subject as 
it were in the abstract and by the light of pure logic alone, 
finally come to an agreement as to the transcendental 
probability of the question before them. Disregarding 
the actual probability which they severally feel to exist in 
relation to their own individual intelligences, they must 
apply themselves to ascertain the probability which exists 
in relation to those fundamental laws of thought which 
preside over the intelligence of our race. In fine, it will 
now, I hope, be understood that, as we have hitherto been 
endeavouring to determine, by deductions drawn from the 
very foundations of all possible science, the relative pro- 
bability as to the existence of a God, so we shall next 
apply ourselves to the task of ascertaining the absolute 
probability of such existence — or, more correctly, what is 
the strictly formal probability of such existence when its 
possibility is contemplated in an absolute sense. 

§ 37, To begin then. In the last resort, the value of 
every probability is fixed by " ratiocination." In endea- 
vouring, therefore, to fix the degree of strictly formal 
probability that is present in any given case, our method 
of procedure should be, first to ascertain the ultimate 
ratios on which the probability depends, and then to 
estimate the comparative value of these ratios. Now I 
think there can be no doubt that the value of any pro- 
bability in this its last analysis is determined by the 
number, the importance, and the definiteness of the rela- 
tions known, as compared with those of the relations 
unknown ; and, consequently, that in all cases where the 
sum of the unknown relations is larger, or more important, 
or more indefinite than is the sum of the known relations, 
it is an essential principle that the value of the proba- 
bility decreases in exact proportion to the decrease in the 
similarity between the two sets of relations, whether 
this decrease consists in the number, in the importance, or 



QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD. 67 

in the definiteness of the relations involved. This rule or 
canon is self-evident as soon as pointed out, and has been 
formulated by Professor Bain in his " Logic " when treating 
of Analogy, but not with sufficient precision ; for, while 
recognising the elements of number and importance, he 
has overlooked that of definiteness. This element, how- ' 
ever, is a very essential one — indeed the most essential of 
the three; for there are many analogical inferences in 
which either the character or the extent of the unknown 
relations is quite indefinite ; and it is obvious that, when- 
ever this is the case, the value of the analogy is propor- 
tionably diminished, and diminished in a much more 
material particular than it is when the diminution of 
value arises from a mere excess of the unknown relations 
over the known ones in respect of their number or of their 
importance. For it is evident that, in the latter case, how- 
ever little value the analogy may possess, the exact degree 
of such value admits of being determined ; while it is no 
less evident that, in the former case, we are precluded 
from estimating the value of the analogy at all, and this 
just in proportion to the indefiniteness of the unknown 
relations. 

§ 38. Now the particular instance with which we are 
concerned is somewhat peculiar. Notwithstanding we 
have the entire sphere of human experience from which 
to argue, we are still unable to gauge the strictly logical 
probability of any argument whatsoever ; for the unknown 
relations in this case are so wholly indefinite, both as to 
their character and extent, that any attempt to insti- 
tute a definite comparison between them and the known 
relations is felt at once to be absurd. The question dis- 
cussed, being the most ultimate of all possible questions, 
must eventually contain in itself all that is to man 
unknown and unknowable; the whole orbit of human 
knowledge is here insufficient to obtain a parallax whereby 
to institute the required measurements. 

§ 39. I think it is desirable to insist upon this truth at 



68 THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE 

somewliat greater length, and, for the sake of impressing 
it still more deeply, I shall present it in another form. 
No one can for a single moment deny that, beyond and 
around the sphere of the Knowable, there exists the un- 
fathomable abyss of the Unknowable. I do not here use 
this latter word as embodying any theory : I merely wish 
it to state the undoubted fact, which all must admit, viz., 
that beneath all our possible explanations there lies a 
great Inexplicable. Now let us see what is the effect of 
making this necessary admission. In the first place, it 
clearly follows that, while our conceptions as to what the 
Unknowable contains may or may not represent the truth, 
it is certain that we can never discover whether or not they 
do. Further, it is impossible for us to determine even a defi- 
nite prohability as to the existence (much less the nature) 
of anything which we may suppose the Unknowable to 
contain. We may, of course, perceive that such and such 
a supposition is more conceivadle than such and such ; but, 
as already indicated, the fact does not show that the one 
is in itself more definitely jorohahle than the other, unless 
it has been previously shown, either that the capacity of 
our conceptions is awfully adequate measure of the Possible, 
or that the proportion between such capacity and the 
extent of the Possible is a proportion that can be deter- 
mined. In either of these cases, the Conceivable would 
be a fair measure of the Possible : in the former case, an 
exact equivalent (e.g., in any instance of contradictory 
propositions, the most conceivable would certainly be 
true) ; in the latter case, a measure any degree less than 
an exact equivalent — the degree depending upon the 
then ascertainable disparity between the extent of the 
Possible and the extent of the Conceivable. Now the 
Unknowable (including of course 'the Inconceivable Exis- 
tent) is a species of the Possible, and in its name carries 
the declaration that the disparity between its extent and 
the extent of the Conceivable (i.e., the other species of the 
Possible) is a disparity that cannot be determined. We are 



QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD. 69 

hence driven to the conclusion that the most apparently pro- 
bable of all propositions, if predicated of anything within 
the Unknowable, may not in reality be a whit more so than 
is the most apparently improbable proposition which it is 
possible to make ; for if it is admitted (as of course it 
must be) that we are necessarily precluded from compar- 
ing the extent of the Conceivable with that of the Un- 
knowable, then it necessarily follows that in no case 
whatever are we competent to judge how far an apparent 
probability relating to the latter province is an actual 
probability. In other words, did we know the proportion 
subsisting^ between the Conceivable and the Unknowable 
in respect of relative extent and character, and so of in- 
herent probabilities, we should then be able to estimate 
the actual value of any apparent probability relating to 
the latter province ; but, as it is, our ability to make this 
estimate varies inversely as our inability to estimate our 
ignorance in this particular. And as our ignorance in 
this particular is total — i.e., since we cannot even approxi- 
mately determine the proportion that subsists between 
the Conceivable and the Unknowable, — the result is that 
our ability to make the required estimate in any given 
case is absolutely nil. 

§ 40. I have purposely rendered this presentation in 
terms of the highest abstraction, partly to avoid the possi- 
bility of any one, whatever his theory of things may be, 
finding anything at which to object, and partly in order 
that my meaning may be understood to include all things 
which are beyond the range of possible knowledge. Most 
of all, therefore, must this presentation (if it contains any- 
thing of truth) apply to the question regarding the exist- 
ence of Deity ; for the Ens Eealissimum must of all things 
be furthest removed from the range of possible knowledge. 
Hence, if this presentation contains anything of truth — 
and of its rigidly accurate truth I think there can be no 
question — the assertion that the Self-existing Substance 
is a Personal and Intelligent Being, and the assertion that 



70 THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE 

this Substance is an Impersonal and Non-Intelligent 
Being, are alike assertions wholly destitute of any assign- 
able degree of logical probability. I say assignable degree 
of logical probability, because that some degree of such 
probability may exist I do not undertake to deny. All I 
assert is, that if we are here able to institute any such 
probability at all, we are unable logically to assign to it 
any determinate degree of value. Or, in other words, 
although we may establish some probability in a sense 
relative to ourselves, we are unable to know how far this 
probability is a probability in an absolute sense. Or again, 
the case is not as though we were altogether unacquainted 
with the Possible. Experience undoubtedly affords us 
some information regarding this, although, comparatively 
speaking, we are unable to know how much. Conse- 
quently, we must suppose that, in any given case, it is more 
likely that the Conceivable should be Possible than that 
the Inconceivable should be so, and that the Conceivably 
Probable should exist than that the Conceivably Impro- 
bable should do so : in neither case, however, can we know 
what degree of such likelihood is present. 

§ 41. From the foregoing considerations, then, it would 
appear that the only attitude which in strict logic it is 
admissible to adopt towards the question concerning the 
being of a God is that of " suspended judgment." For- 
mally speaking, it is alike illegitimate to affirm or to deny 
Intelligence as an attribute of the Ultimate. And here I 
would desire it to be observed, that this is the attitude 
which the majority of scientifically-trained philosophers 
actually have adopted with regard to this matter. I am 
not aware, however, that any one has yet endeavoured to 
formulate the justification of this attitude ; and as I think 
there can be no doubt that the above presentation con- 
tains in a logical shape the whole of such justification, I 
cannot but think that some important ends will have been 
secured by it. For we are here in possession, not merely 
of a vague and general impression that the Ultimate is 



QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD. 71 

super-scientific, and so beyond the range of legitimate 
predication; but we are also in possession of a logical 
formula whereby at once to vindicate the rationality of 
our opinion, and to measure the precise degree of its 
technical value. 



( 72 ) 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 

§ 42. Let us now proceed to examine the effect of the 
formal considerations which have been adduced in the 
last chapter on the scientific considerations which were 
dealt with in the previous chapters. In these previous 
chapters the proposition was clearly established that, just 
as certainly as the fundamental data of science are true, 
so certainly is it true that the theory of Theism in any 
shape is, scientifically considered, superfluous; for these 
chapters have clearly shown that, if there is a God, his 
existence, considered as a cause of things, is as certainly 
unnecessary as it is certainly true that force is persistent 
and that matter is indestructible. But after this pro- 
position had been carefully justified, it remained to show 
that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge compelled 
us to carry our discussion into a region of yet higher 
abstraction. Tor although we observed that the essential 
qualities of matter and of force are the most ultimate data 
of human knowledge, and although, by showing how far 
the question of Theism depended on these data, we carried 
the discussion of that question to the utmost possible 
limits of scientific thought, it still devolved on us to con- 
template the fact that even these the most ultimate data 
of science are only known to be of relative significance. 
And the bearing of this fact to the question of Theism 
was seen to be most important. Tor, without waiting to 
recapitulate the substance of a chapter so recently con- 
cluded, it will be remembered that its effect was to 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 73 

establisli this position "beyond all controversy — viz., that 
when ideas which have been formed by onr experience 
within the region of phenomenal actuality are projected 
into the region of ontological possibility, they become 
utterly worthless; seeing that we can never have any 
means whereby to test the actual value of whatever trans- 
cendental probabilities they may appear to establish. 
Therefore it is that even the most ultimate of relative 
truths with which, as we have seen, the question of 
Theism is so vitally associated, is almost without mean- 
ing when contemplated in an absolute sense. What, then, 
is the effect of .these metaphysical considerations on the 
position of Theism as we have seen it to be left by the 
highest generalisations of physical science ? Let us con- 
template this question with the care which it deserves. 

In the first place, it is evident that the effect of these 
purely formal considerations is to render all reasonings 
on the subject of Theism equally illegitimate, unless it is 
constantly borne in mind that such reasonings can only 
be of relative signification. Thus, as a matter of pure 
logic, these considerations are destructive of all assignable 
validity of any such reasoning whatsoever. Still, even a 
strictly relative probability is, in some undefinable degree, 
of more value than no probability at all, as we have seen 
these same formal considerations to show (see § 40) ; and, 
moreover, even were this not so, the human mind will 
never rest until it attains to the furthest probability which 
to its powers is accessible. Therefore, if we do not forget 
the merely relative nature of the considerations which 
are about to be adduced, by adducing them we may at the 
same time satisfy our own minds and abstain from violat- 
ing the conditions of sound logic. 

The shape, then, to which the subject has now been 
reduced is simply this : — Seeing that the theory of Evolu- 
tion in its largest sense has shown the theory of Theism 
to be superfluous in a scientific sense, does it not follow 
that the theory of Theism is thus shown to be superfluous 



74 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

in any sense ? For it would seem from the discussion, so 
far as it has hitherto gone, that the only rational basis on 
which the theory of Theism can rest is a basis of tele- 
ology ; and if, as has been clearly shown, the theory of 
evolution, by deducing the genesis of natural law from 
the primary data of science, irrevocably destroys this 
basis, does it not follow that the theory of evolution has 
likewise destroyed the theory w^hich rested on that basis ? 
Now I conclude, as stated at the close of Chapter IV., that 
the question here put must certainly be answered in the 
affirmative, so far as its scientific aspect is concerned. 
But when we consider the question in its purely logical 
aspect, as we have done in Chapter V., the case is other- 
wise. For although, so far as the utmost reach of 
scientific vision enables us to see, we can discern no 
evidence of Deity, it does not therefore follow that beyond 
the range of such vision Deity does not exist. Science 
indeed has proved that if there is a Divine Mind in nature, 
and if by the hypothesis such a Mind exerts any causa- 
tive influence on the phenomena of nature, such influence 
is exerted beyond the sphere of experience. And this 
achievement of science, be it never forgotten, is an achieve- 
ment of prodigious importance, efiectually destroying, as 
it does, all vestiges of a scientific teleology. But be it 
now carefully observed, although all vestiges of a scientific 
teleology are thus completely and permanently ruined, 
the formal considerations adduced in the last chapter 
supply the conditions for constructing what may be 
termed a metaphysical teleology. I use these terms ad- 
visedly, because I think they will serve to bring out with 
great clearness the condition to which our analysis of the 
teleological argument has now been reduced. 

§ 43. In the first place, let it be understood that I 
employ the terms " scientific " and " metaphysical " in the 
convenient sense in which they are employed by Mr. 
Lewes, viz., as respectively designating a theory that is 
verifiable and a theory that is not. Consequently, by the 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 75 

term " scientific teleology " I mean to denote a form of 
teleology which admits either of being proved or dis- 
proved, while by the term " metaphysical teleology " I 
mean to denote a form of teleology which does not admit 
either of being proved or of being disproved. Now, with 
these significations clearly understood, it will be seen 
that the forms of teleology which we have hitherto con- 
sidered belong entirely to the scientific class. That the 
Paleyerian form of the argument did so is manifest, first 
because this argument itself treats the problem of Theism 
as a problem that is susceptible of scientific demonstra- 
tion, and next because we have seen that the advance of 
science has proved this argument susceptible of scientific 
refutation. In other words, from the supposed axiom, 
" There cannot be apparent design without a designer," 
adaptations in nature become logically available as purely 
scientific evidence of an intelligent cause ; and that Paley 
himself regarded them exclusively in this light is manifest, 
both from his own " statement of the argument," and from 
the character of the evidence by which he seeks to 
establish the argument when stated — witness the typical 
passage before quoted (§ 26). On the other hand, we 
have clearly seen that this Paleyerian system of natural 
theology has been effectually demolished by the scientific 
theory of natural selection — the fundamental axiom of the 
former having been shown by the latter to be scientifically 
untrue. Hence the term " scientific teleology " is without 
question applicable to the Paleyerian system. 

Nor is the case essentially different with the more 
refined form of the teleological argument which we have 
had to consider — the argument, namely, from General 
Laws. Por here, likewise, we have clearly seen that the 
inference from the ubiquitous operation of General Laws 
to the existence of an omniscient Law-maker is quite as 
illegitimate as is the inference from apparent Design to 
the existence of a supreme Designer. In other words, 
science, by establishing the doctrine of the persistence of 



76 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

force and the indestructibility of matter, has effectually 
disproved the hypothesis that the presence of Law in 
nature is of itself sufficient to prove the existence of an 
intelligent Law-giver. 

Thus it is that scientific teleology in any form is now 
and for ever obsolete. But not so with what I have 
termed metaphysical teleology. For as we have seen 
that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge precludes 
us from asserting, or even from inferring, that beyond the 
region of the Knowable Mind does not exist, it remains 
logically possible to institute a metaphysical hypothesis 
that beyond this region of the Knowable Mind does 
exist. There being a necessary absence of any positive 
information whereby to refute this metaphysical hypo- 
thesis, any one who chooses to adopt it is fully justified 
in doing so, provided only he remembers that the purely 
metaphysical quality whereby the hypothesis is ensured 
against disproof, likewise, and in the same degree, pre- 
cludes it from the possibility of proof. He must re- 
member that it is no longer open to him to point to any 
particular set of general laws and to assert, these pro- 
claim Intelligence as their cause ; for we have repeatedly 
seen that the known states of matter and force themselves 
afford sufficient explanation of the facts to which he 
points. And he must remember that the only reason 
why his hypothesis does not conflict with any of the 
truths known to science, is because he has been careful to 
rest that hypothesis upon a basis of purely formal con- 
siderations, which lie beyond even the most fundamental 
truths of which science is cognisant. 

Thus, for example, he may present his metaphysical 
theory of Theism in some such terms as these : — ' Fully 
conceding what reason shows must be conceded, and 
there still remains this possible supposition — viz., that 
there is a presiding Mind in nature, which exerts its 
causative influence beyond the sphere of experience, thus 
rendering it impossible for us to obtain scientific evidence 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. yj 

of its action. For such a Mind, exerting such an influence 
beyond experience, may direct afiairs within experience 
by methods conceivable or inconceivable to us — producing, 
possibly, innumerable and highly varied results, which in 
turn may produce their effects within experience, their 
introduction being then, of course, in the ordinary way of 
natural law. For instance, there can be no question that 
by the intelligent creation or dissipation of energy, all. 
the phenomena of cosmic evolution might have been 
directed, and, for aught that science can show to the 
contrary, thus only rendered possible. Hence there is at 
least one nameable way in which, even in accordance 
with observed facts, a Supreme Mind could be competent 
to direct the phenomena of observable nature. But we 
are not necessarily restricted to the limits of the nameable 
in this matter, so that it is of no argumentative importance 
whether or not this suc^crested method is the method which 
the supposed Mind actually adopts, seeing that there 
may still be other possible methods, which, nevertheless, 
we are unable to sucraest.' 

Doubtless the hypothesis of Theism, as thus presented, 
will be deemed by many persons but of very slender 
probability. I am not, however, concerned with whatever 
character of probability it may be supposed to exhibit. 
I am merely engaged in carefully presenting the only 
hypothesis which can be presented, if the theory as to 
an Intelligent Author of nature is any longer to be 
maintained on grounds of a rational teleology. Xo doubt, 
scientifically considered, the hypothesis in question is 
purely gratuitous ; for, so far as the light of science can 
penetrate, there is no need of any such hypothesis at all. 
Thus it may well seem, at first sight, that no hypothesis 
could well have less to recommend it ; and, so far as the 
presentation has yet gone, it is therefore fully legitimate 
for an atheist to reply : — ' All that this so-called meta- 
physical theory amounts to is a wholly gratuitous 
assumption. Xo doubt it is always difficult, and usually 



78 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

impossible, logically or unequivocally to prove a negative. 
If my adversary chose to imagine that nature is presided 
over by a demon with horns and hoofs, or by a dragon 
with claws and tail, I should be as unable to disprove 
this his supposed theory as I am now unable to disprove 
his actual theory. But in all cases reasonable men ought 
to be guided in their beliefs by such positive evidence as 
is available ; and if, as in the present case, the alternative 
belief is wholly gratuitous — adopted not only without any 
evidence, but against all that great body 'of evidence 
which the sum-total of science supplies — surely we ought 
not to hesitate for one moment in the choice of our 
creed ? ' 

N'ow all this is quite sound in principle, provided only 
that the metaphysical theory of Theism is wholly gratui- 
tous, in the sense of being utterly destitute of evidential 
support. That it is destitute of all scientific support, we 
have already and repeatedly seen; but the question 
remains as to whether it is similarly destitute of meta- 
'physical support. 

§ 44. To this question, then, let us next address our- 
selves. From the theistic pleading which we have just 
heard, it is abundantly manifest that the formal conditions 
of a metaphysical teleology are present: the question 
now before us is as to whether or not any actual evidence 
exists in favour of such a theory. In order to discuss 
this question, let us begin by allowing the theist to 
continue his pleading. ' You have shown me,' he may 
say, ' that a scientific or demonstrable system of teleology 
is no longer possible, and, therefore, as I have already 
conceded, I must take my stand on a metaphysical or non- 
demonstrable system. But I reflect that the latter term 
is a loose one, seeing that it embraces all possible degrees 
of evidence short of actual proof. The question, therefore, 
I conceive to be. What amount of evidence is there in 
favour of this metaphysical system of teleology ? And 
this question I answer by the following considerations: — 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 79 

As general laws separately have all been shown to be 
the necessary outcome of the primary data of science, it 
certainly follows that general laws collectively must be 
the same — i.e., that the whole system of general laws 
must be, so far as the lights of our science can penetrate, 
the necessary outcome of the persistence of force and the 
indestructibility of matter. But you have also clearly 
shown me that these lights are of the feeblest conceivable 
character when they are brought to illuminate the final 
mystery of things. I therefore feel at liberty to assert, 
that if there is any one principle to be observed in the 
collective operation of general laws which cannot con- 
ceivably be explained by any cause other than that of 
intelligent guidance, I am still free to fall back on such 
a principle and to maintain — Although the collective 
operation of general laws follows as a necessary conse- 
quence from the primary data of science, this one 
principle which pervades their united action, and which 
cannot be conceivably explained by any hypothesis other 
than that of intelligent guidance, is a principle which still 
remains to be accounted for ; and as it cannot conceivably 
be accounted for on grounds of physical science, I may 
legitimately account for it on grounds of metaphysical 
teleology. Now I cannot open my eyes without per- 
ceiving such a principle everywhere characterising the 
collective operation of general laws. Universally I behold 
in nature, order, beauty, harmony, — that is, a perfect 
correlation among general laws. But this ubiquitous 
correlation among general laws, considered as the cause of 
cosmic harmony, itself requires some explanatory cause 
such as the persistence of force and the indestructibility 
of matter cannot conceivably be made to supply. For 
unless we postulate some one integrating cause, the 
greater the number of general laws in nature, the less 
likelihood is there of such laws being so correlated as to 
produce harmony by their combined action. And for- 
asmuch as the only cause that I am able to imagine 



8o THE ARGUMENT FROM 

as competent to produce such effects is that of intelli- 
gent guidance, I accept the metaphysical hypothesis that 
beyond the sphere of the Knowable there exists an Un- 
known God.i 

' If it is retorted that the above argument involves an 
absurd contradiction, in that while it sets out with an 
explicit avowal of the fact that the collective operation of 
general laws follows as a necessary consequence from the 
primary data of physical science, it nevertheless after- 
wards proceeds to explain an effect of such collective 
operation by a metaphysical hypothesis; I answer 
that it was expressly for the purpose of eliciting 
this retort that I threw my argument into the above 
form. For the position which I wish to establish is this, 
that fully accepting the logical cogency of the reasoning 
whereby the action of every law is deduced from the 
primary data of science, I wish to show that when this 
train of reasoning is followed to its ultimate term, it leads 
us into the presence of a fact for which it is inadequate to 
account. If, then, my contention be granted — viz., that to 
human faculties it is not conceivable how, in the absence 
of a directing intelligence, general laws could be so corre- 

1 It may here be observed that the throughout this present essay I have 

above discussion would not be affected used the words "Natural Law," 

by the view of Professor Clifford "Supreme Law-giver," &c., in an 

and others, that natural law is to be apparently unguarded sense, merely 

regarded as having a subjective rather in order to avoid needless obscurity, 

than an objective signification — that Fully sensible as I am of tbe mis- 

what we call a natural law is merely leading nature of the analogy which 

an arbitrary selection made by our- these words embody, I have yet 

selves of certain among natural pro- adopted them for the sake of per. 

cesses. The discussion would not be spicuity — being careful, however, 

affected by this view, because the never to allow the false analogy 

argument is really based upon the which they express to enter into an 

existence of a cosmos as distinguished argument on either side of the 

from a chaos ; and therefore it would question. Thus, even where it is 

be rather an intensification of the said that the existence of Natural 

argument than otherwise to point Law points to the existence of a 

out that, for the maintenance of a Supreme Law-maker, the argument 

cosmos, natural, laws, as conceived by might equally well be phrased : The 

us, would be inadequate. And this existence of an orderly cosmos points 

seems a fitting place to make the to the existence of a disposing 

almost superfluous remark, that mind. 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 8i 

lated as to produce universal harmony — then I have 
brought the matter to this issue : — Notwithstanding the 
scientific train of argument being complete in itself, it still 
leaves us in the presence of a fact which it cannot con- 
ceivably explain ; and it is this unexplained residuum — 
this total product of the operation of general laws — that I 
appeal to as the logical justification for a system of meta- 
physical teleology — a system which offers the only con- 
ceivable explanation of this stupendous fact. 

* And here I may further observe, that the scientific train 
of reasoning is of the kind which embodies what Mr. 
Herbert Spencer calls " symbolic conceptions of the 
illeojitimate order." ^ That is to sav, we can see how such 
simple laws as that action and reaction are equal and 
opposite may have been self-evolved, and from this fact 
we go on generalising and generalising, until we land our- 
selves in wholly symbolic and^a paradox is here legiti- 
mate — inconceivable conceptions. ISTow the farther we 
travel into this region of unrealisable ideas, the less trust- 
worthy is the report that we are able to bring back. The 
method is in a sensa scientific ; but when even scientific 
method is projected into a region of really super-scientific 
possibility, it ceases to have that character of undoubted 
certainty which it enjoys when dealing with verifiable 
subjects of inquiry. The demonstrations are formal, but 
they are not real. 

* Therefore, looking to this necessarily suspicious 
character of the scientific train of reasoning, and then 
observing that, even if accepted, it leaves the fact of cos- 
mic harmony unexplained, I maintain that whatever pro- 
bability the phenomena of nature may in former times 
have been thought to establish in favour of the theory as 
to an intelligent Author of nature, that probability has 
been in no wise annihilated — nor apparently can it ever 
be annihilated — by the advance of science. And not 
only so, but I question whether this probability has been 

^ First Principles, pp. 27-29. 

F 



82 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

even seriously impaired by such advance, seeing that 
although this advance has revealed a speculative raison 
d'itre of the mechanical precision of nature, it has at the 
same time shown the baffling complexity of nature ; and 
therefore, in view of what has just been said, leaves the 
balance of probability concerning the existence of a God 
very much where it always was. For stay awhile to 
contemplate this astounding complexity of harmonious 
nature ! Think of how much we already know of its 
innumerable laws and processes, and then think that this 
knowledge only serves to reveal, in a glimmering way, 
the huge immensity of the unknown. Try to picture the 
meshwork of contending rhythms which must have been 
before organic nature was built up, and then let us ask. 
Is it conceivable, is it credible, that all this can have been 
the work of blind fate ? Must we not feel that had there 
not been intelligent agency at work somewhere, other and 
less terrifically intricate results would have ensued ? 
And if we further try to symbolise in thought the un- 
imaginable complexity of the material and dynamical 
changes in virtue of which that thought itself exists, — if 
we then extend our symbols to represent all the history 
of all the orderly changes which must have taken place 
to evolve human intelligence into what it is, — and if we 
still further extend our symbols to try if it be possible, 
even in the language of symbols, to express the number 
and the subtlety of those natural laws which now preside 
over the human will ; — in the face of so vast an assump- 
tion as that all this has been self-evolved, I am content 
still to ] est in the faith of my forefathers.' 

§ 45. Now I think it must be admitted that we have here 
a valid argument. That is to say, the considerations which 
we have just adduced must, I think, in fairness be allowed 
to have established this position : — That the system of 
metaphysical teleology for which we have supposed a 
candid theist to plead, is something more than a purely 
gratuitous system — that it does not belong to the same 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 83 

category of baseless imaginings as that to which the 
atheist at first sight, and in view of the scientific deduc- 
tions alone, mig^ht be inclined to assign it. For we have 
seen that our supposed theist, while fully admitting the 
formal cogency of the scientific train of reasoning, is 
nevertheless able to point to a fact which, in his opinion, 
lies without that train of reasoning. For he declares that 
it is beyond his powers of conception to regard the com- 
plex harmony of nature otherwise than as a product of 
some one integrating cause ; and that the only cause of 
which he is able to conceive as adequate to produce such 
an effect is that of a conscious Intelligence. Pointing, 
therefore, to this complex harmony of nature as to a fact 
which cannot to his mind be conceivably explained by 
any deductions from physical science, he feels that he is 
justified in explaining this fact by the aid of a meta- 
physical hypothesis. And in so doing he is in my opinion 
perfectly justified, at any rate to this extent — that his 
antagonist cannot fairly dispose of this metaphysical 
hypothesis as a purely gratuitous hypothesis. How far it 
is a probable hypothesis is another question, and to this 
question we shall now address ourselves. 

§ 46. If it is true that the deductions from physical 
science cannot be conceived to explain some among the 
observed facts of nature, and if it is true that these 
particular facts admit of being conceivably explained by 
the metaphysical hypothesis in question, then, beyond all 
controversy, this metaphysical hypothesis must be pro- 
visionally accepted. Let us then carefully examine the 
premises which are thus adduced to justify acceptance of 
this hypothesis as their conclusion. 

In the first place, it is not — cannot — be denied, even by 
a theist, that the deductions from physical science do 
embrace the fact of cosmic harmony in their explanation, 
seeing that, as they explain the operation of general laws 
collectively, they must be regarded as also explaining 
every effect of such operation. And this, as we have seen. 



84 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

is a consideration to which our imaginary theist was not 
blind. How then did he meet it ? He met it by the con- 
siderations — 1st. That the scientific train of reasoning 
evolved this conclusion only by employing, in a wholly 
unrestricted manner, " symbolic conceptions of the illegi- 
timate order;" and, 2d. That when the conclusion thus 
illegitimately evolved was directly confronted with the 
fact of cosmic harmony which it professes to explain, he 
found it to be beyond the powers of human thought to 
conceive of such an effect as due to such a cause. Now, 
as already observed, I consider these strictures on the 
scientific train of reasoning to be thoroughly valid. There 
can be no question that the highly symbolic character of 
the conceptions which that train of reasoning is compelled 
to adopt, is a source of serious weakness to the conclusions 
which it ultimately evolves ; while there can, I think, be 
equally little doubt that there does not live a human 
being who would venture honestly to affirm, that he can 
really conceive the fact of cosmic harmony as exclusively 
due to the causes which the scientific train of reasoning 
assigns. But freely conceding this much, and an atheist 
may reply, that although the objections of his antagonist 
against this symbolic method of reasoning are undoubtedly 
valid, yet, from the nature of the case, this is the only 
method of scientific reasoning which is available. If, 
therefore, he expresses his obligations to his antagonist 
for pointing out a source of weakness in this method of 
reasoning — a source of weakness, be it observed, which 
renders it impossible for him to estimate the actual, as 
distinguished from the apparent, probability of the conclu- 
sion attained — this is all that he can be expected to do : he 
cannot be expected to abandon the only scientific method 
of reasoning available, in favour of a metaphysical method 
which only escapes the charge of symbolism by leaping 
with a single bound from a known cause (human intel- 
ligence) to the inference of an unknowable cause (Divine 
Intelligence). For the atheist may well point out that, 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 85 

however objectionable bis scientific method of reasoning 
may be on account of the symbolism which it involves, it 
must at any rate be preferable to the metaphysical method, 
in that its symbols throughout refer to known causes.l 
With regard, then, to this stricture on the scientific method 
of reasoning, I conclude that although the caveat which it 
contains should never be lost sight of by atheists, it is not 
of sufficient cogency to justify theists in abandoning a 
scientific in favour of a metaphysical mode of reasoning. 

How then does it fare with the other stricture, or the con- 
sideration that, " when the conclusion thus illegitimately 2 
evolved is confronted with the fact of cosmic harmony 
which it professes to explain, we find it to be beyond the 
powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as 
due to such a cause " ? The atheist may answer, in the 
first place, that a great deal here turns on the precise 
meaning which we assign to the word " conceive." For 
we have just seen that, by employing " symbolic concep- 
tions," we are able to frame what we may term a formal 
conception of universal harmony as due to the persistence 
of force and the primary qualities of matter. That is to 
say, we have seen that such universal harmony as nature 
presents must be regarded as an effect of the collective 
operation of general laws ; and we have previously arrived 

^ It may be here observed that this known, the determinate value of sym- 

quality of indefiniteness on the part bols of thought varies inversely as the 

of such reasoning is merely a practical distance — or, not improbably, as the 

outcome of the theoretical considera- square of the distance — from the 

tions adduced in Chapter V. For as sphere of the known at which they 

we there saw that the ratio between are applied. 

the known and the unknown is in ^ i.e., illegitimate in a relative 
this case wholly indefinite, it follows sense. The conclusion is legitimate 
that any symbols derived from the enough in a formal sense, and as 
region of the known — even though establishing a probability of some 
such symbols be the highest generali- unassignable degree of value. But it 
ties which the latter region affords — would be illegitimate if this quality 
must be wholly indefinite when pro- of indefiniteness were disregarded, 
jected into the region of the unknown, and the conclusion supposed to pos- 
Or rather let us say, that as the region sess the same character of actual pro- 
of the unknown is but a progressive bability as it has of formal defi.ni- 
continuation of the region of the tion. 



86 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

at a formal conception of general laws as singly and 
collectively the product of self-evolution. Consequently, 
the word "conceive," as used in the theistic argument, 
must be taken to mean our ability to frame what we may 
term a material conception, or a representation in thought 
of the whole history of cosmic evolution, which represen- 
tation shall be in some satisfactory degree intellectually 
realisable. Observing, then, this important difference 
between an inconceivability which arises from an impossi- 
bility of establishing relations in thought between certain 
abstract or symbolic conceptions, and an inconceivability 
which arises from a mere failure to realise in imagination 
the results which must follow among external relations 
if the symbolically conceivable combinations among them 
ever took place, an atheist may here argue as follows ; and 
it does not appear that there is any legitimate escape from 
his reasonings. 

' I first consider the undoubted fact that the existence 
of a Supreme Mind in nature is, scientifically considered, 
unnecessary; and, therefore, that the only reason we 
require to entertain the supposition of any such existence 
at all is, that the complexity of nature being so great, we 
are unable adequately to conceive of its self-evolution — 
notwithstanding our reason tells us plainly that, given a 
self-existing universe of force and matter, and such self- 
evolution becomes abstractedly possible. I then reflect 
that this is a negative and not a positive ground of belief. 
If the hypothesis of self-evolution is true, we should 
a ^priori expect that by the time evolution had advanced 
sufficiently far to admit of the production of a reasoning 
intelligence, the complexity of nature must be so great, 
that the nascent reasoning powers would be completely 
baffied in their attempts to comprehend the various pro- 
cesses going on around them. This seems to be about the 
state of things which we now experience. Still, as reason 
advances more and more, we may expect, both from general 
d^n'oW principles and from particular historical analogies, 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY, %y 

that more and more of the processes of nature will admit 
of being interpreted by reason, and that in proportion as 
our ability to understand the frame and the constitution of 
things progresses, so our ability to conceive of them as 
all naturally and necessarily evolved will likewise and 
concurrently progress. Thus, for example, how vast a 
number of the most intricate and delicate correlations in 
nature have been rendered at once intelligible and con- 
ceivably due to non-intelligent causes, by the discovery of 
a single principle in nature — the principle of natural selec- 
tion. 

* In the adverse argument, conceivability is again made 
the unconditional test of truth, just as it was in the argu- 
ment against the possibility of matter thinking. We reject 
the hypothesis of self-evolution, not because it is the more 
remote one, but simply because we experience a subjective 
incapacity adequately to frame the requisite generalisa- 
tions in thought, or to frame them with as much clearness 
as we could wish. Yet our reason tells us as plainly as it 
tells us any general truth which is too large to be presented 
in detail, that there is nothing in the nature of things 
themselves, as far as we can see, antagonistic to the sup- 
position of their having been self-evolved. Only on the 
ground, therefore, of our own intellectual deficiencies ; only 
because as yet, by the self-evolutionary hypothesis, the inner 
order does not completely answer to the outer order ; only 
because the number and complexity of subjective relations 
have not yet been able to rival those of the objective 
relations producing them ; only on this ground do we 
refuse to assent to the obvious deductions of our reason.-^ 

1 In order not to burden the text general statement of the atheistic 

■with details, I have presented these position includes all more special 

reflections in their most general considerations as a genus includes its 

terms. Thus, if it be granted that species ; and therefore it would not 

cosmic harmony results from the signify, for the purposes of the 

combined action of general laws, and atheistic argument, whether or not 

that these laws are the necessary any such more special considerations 

result of the primary qualities of are possible. Nevertheless, for the 

force and matter, this the most sake of completeness, I may here 



THE ARGUMENT FROM 



' And here I may observe, further, that the presumption 
in favour of atheism which these deductions establish 
is considerably fortified by certain a posteriori considera- 
tions which we cannot afford to overlook. In particular, 
I reflect that, as a matter of fact, the theistic theory is 
born of highly suspicious parentage, — that Fetichism, or 
the crudest form of the theory of personal agency in 



observe, that we are not wholly with- 
out indications in nature of the 
physical causation whereby the effect 
of cosmic harmony is produced. The 
universal tendency of motion to be- 
come rhythmical — itself, as Mr. 
Spencer was the first to show, a ne- 
cessary consequence of the persistence 
of force — is, so to speak, a conserva- 
tive tendency : it sets a premium 
against natural cataclysms. But a 
more important consideration is this, 
— that during the evolution of natural 
law in the way suggested in Chapter 
IV. , as every newly evolved law came 
into existence it must have been, 
as it were, grafted on the stock of all 
pre-existing natural laws, and so 
would not enter the cosmic system as 
an element of confusion, but rather as 
an element of further progress. For 
instance, when, with the origin of 
organic nature, the law of natural se- 
lection entered upon the cosmos, it 
was grafted upon the pre-existing 
stock of other natural laws, and so 
combined within them in unity. 
And a little thought will show that 
it was impossible that it should do 
otherwise ; for it was impossible that 
natural selection could ever produce 
organisms which would ever be able 
by their existence to conflict with the 
pre-existing system of astronomic or 
geologic laws ; seeing that organisms, 
being a product of later evolution 
than these laws, would either have 
to be adapted to them or perish. 
And hence the new law of natural 
selection, which consists in so adapt- 
ing organisms to the pre-existing laws 
that they must either conform to 



them or die. Now, I have chosen 
the case of natural selection, because, 
as alluded to in the text, it is the 
law of all others which is the most 
conspicuously effective in producing 
the harmonious complexity of nature. 
But the same kind of considerations 
may be seen to apply to most of the 
other general laws with which we are 
acquainted, particularly if we bear 
in mind that the general outcome of 
their united action as we observe it — 
the cosmic harmony on which so much 
stress is laid — is not perfectly har- 
monious. Cataclysms — whether it be 
the capture of an insect, or the ruin 
of a star— although events of com- 
paratively rare occurrence if at any 
given time we take into account the 
total number of insects or the total 
number of stars, are events which 
nevertheless do occasionally happen. 
And the fact that even cataclysms 
take place in accordance with so-called 
natural law, serves but to emphasise 
the consideration on which we are 
engaged — viz., that the total result 
of the combined action of general 
laws is not such as to produce perfect 
order. Lastly, if the answer is made 
that human ideas of perfect order 
may not correspond with the highest 
ideal of such order, I observe that to 
make such an answer is merely to 
abandon the subject of discussion ; 
for if a theist rests his argument on 
the basis of our human conception of 
order, he is not free to maintain his 
argument and at the same time to 
abandon its basis at whatever point 
the latter may be shown untenable. 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 89 

external nature, admits of being easily traced to tlie laws 
of a primitive psychology; that the step from this to 
Polytheism is easy ; and that the step from this to Mono- 
theism is necessary. If it is objected to this view that it 
does not follow that because some theories of personal 
agency have proved themselves false, therefore all such 
theories must be so — I answer, Unquestionably not ; but 
the above considerations are not adduced in order to 
negative the theistic theory : they are merely adduced to 
show that the human mind has hitherto undoubtedly 
exhibited an undue and a vicious tendency to interpret 
the objective processes of nature in terms of its own sub- 
jective processes ; and as we can see quite well that the 
current theory of personal agency in nature, whether or not 
true, is a necessary outcome of intellectual evolution, I 
think that the fact of so abundant an historical analogy 
ought to be allowed to lend a certain degree of antecedent 
suspicion to this theory — although, of course, the suspicion 
is of a kind which would admit of immediate destruction 
before any satisfactory positive evidence in favour of the 
theory .1 

' But what is ' the satisfactory positive evidence ' that 
is offered me ? Nothing, save an alleged subjective in- 
capacity on the part of my opponent adequately to con- 
ceive of the fact of cosmic harmony as due to physical 
causation alone. Now I have already commented on 
the weakness of his position; but as my opponent will 
doubtless resort to the consideration that inconceivability 
of an opposite is, after all, the best criterion of truth which 
at any given stage of intellectual evolution is available, I 
will now conclude my overthrow by pointing out that, even 
if we take the argument from teleology in its widest 

^ [Since the above was written, the more connected and conclusive man- 
first volume of Mr. Spencer's "Soci- ner than has ever been shown before, 
ology " has been published ; and how strictly natural is the growth of 
those who may not as yet have read all superstitions and religions — i.e., 
the first half of that work are here of all the theories of personal agency 
strongly recommended to do so ; for in nature. — 1878.] 
Mr. Spencer has there shown, in a 



90 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

possible sense — the argument, I mean, from the general 
order and beauty of nature, as well as the gross con- 
stituent part of it from design — even taking this argument 
in its widest sense and upon its own ground (which 
ground, I presume, it is now sufficiently obvious can only 
be that of the inconceivability of its negation), I will con- 
clude my examination of this argument by showing that 
it is quite as inconceivable to predicate cosmic harmony 
an effect of Intelligence, as it is to predicate it an effect of 
Non-intelligence ; and therefore that the argument from 
inconceivability admits of being turned with quite as 
terrible a force upon Theism as it can be made to exert 
upon Atheism. 

' " In metaphysical controversy, many of the propositions 
propounded and accepted as quite believable are absolutely 
inconceivable. There is a perpetual confusing of actual 
ideas with what are nothing but pseud-ideas. No distinc- 
tion is made between propositions that contain real 
thoughts and propositions that are only the forms of 
thoughts. A thinkable proposition is one of which the 
two terms can he brought together in consciousness under the 
relation said to exist between them. But very often, when 
the subject of a proposition has been thought of as some- 
thing known, and when the predicate of a proposition has 
been thought of as something known, and when the rela- 
tion alleged between them has been thought of as a 
known relation, it is supposed that the proposition itself 
has been thought. The thinking separately of the ele- 
ments of a proposition is mistaken for the thinking of 
them in the combination which the proposition affirms. 
And hence it continually happens that propositions which 
cannot be rendered into thought at all are supposed to be 
not only thought but believed. The proposition that 
Evolution is caused by Mind is one of this nature. The 
two terms are separately intelligible ; but they can be 
regarded in the relation of effect and cause only so long 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY, 91 

as no attempt is made to put them together in this 
relation. 

' " The only thing which any one knows as Mind is the 
series of his own states of consciousness ; and if he thinks 
of any mind other than his own, he can think of it only 
in terms derived from his own. If I am asked to frame a 
notion of Mind divested of all those structural traits 
under which alone I am conscious of mind in myself, I 
cannot do it. I know nothinsr of thought save as carried 
on in ideas originally traceable to the effects wrought by 
objects on me. A mental act is an unintelligible phrase if I 
am not to regard it as an act in which states of conscious- 
ness are severally known as like other states in the series 
that has gone by, and in which the relations between 
them are severally known as like past relations in the 
series. If, then, I have to conceive evolution as caused 
by an ' originating Mind,' I must conceive this Mind as 
having attributes akin to those of the only mind I know, 
and without which I cannot conceive mind at all. 

' " I will not dwell on the many incongruities hence 
resulting, by asking how the ' originating Mind ' is to be 
thought of as having states produced by things objective 
to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing 
them as like and unlike ; and as preferring one objective 
result to another. I will simply ask. What happens if 
we ascribe to the * originating ^Mind ' the character 
absolutely essential to the conception of mind, that it 
consists of a series of states of consciousness ? Put a 
series of states of consciousness as cause and the evolv- 
ing universe as effect, and then endeavour to see the last 
as flowing from the first. I find it possible to imagine in 
some dim way a series of states of consciousness serving as 
antecedent to any one of the movements I see going on ; 
for my own states of consciousness are often indirectly 
the antecedents to such movements. But how if I 
attempt to think of such a series as antecedent to all 
actions throughout the universe — to the motions of the 



92 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

multitudinous stars tliroughout space, to the revolutions 
of all their planets round them, to the gyrations of all 
these planets on their axes, to the infinitely multiplied 
physical processes going on in each of these suns and 
planets? I cannot think of a single series of states of 
consciousness as causing even the relatively small groups 
of actions going on over the earth's surface. I cannot 
think of it even as antecedent to all the various winds 
and the dissolving clouds they bear, to the currents of all 
the rivers, and the grinding actions of all the glaciers ; 
still less can I think of it as antecedent to the infinity of 
processes simultaneously going on in all the plants that 
cover the globe, from scattered polar lichens to crowded 
tropical palms, and in all the millions of quadrupeds that 
roam among them, and the millions of millions of insects 
that buzz about them. Even a single small set of these 
multitudinous terrestrial changes I cannot conceive as 
antecedent a single series of states of consciousness — 
cannot, for instance, think of it as causing the hundred 
thousand breakers that are at this instant curling over on 
the shores of England. How, then, is it possible for me to 
conceive an ' originating Mind,' which I must represent 
to myself as a single, series of states of consciousness, 
working the infinitely multiplied sets of changes simuU 
taneously going on in worlds too numerous to count, dis- 
persed throughout a space that baffies imagination ? 

' " If, to account for this infinitude of physical changes 
everywhere going on, ' Mind must be conceived as there ' 
'under the guise of simple Dynamics,' then the reply 
is, that, to be so conceived. Mind must be divested 
of all attributes by which it is distinguished ; and that, 
when thus divested of its distinguishing attributes, the 
conception disappears — the word Mind stands for a 
blank. . . . 

' *' Clearly, therefore, the proposition that an ' originat- 
ing Mind ' is the cause of evolution is a proposition that 
can be entertained so long only as no attempt is made to 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 93 

unite in thonglit its two terms in the alleged relation. 
That it should be accepted as a matter of faith may be a 
defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it 
should be so accepted ; but that it should be accepted as 
a matter of understanding — as a statement making the 
order of the universe comprehensible — is a quite inde- 
fensible position." ' 1 

§ 47. We have now heard the pleading on both sides 
of the ultimate issue to which it is possible that the 
argument from teleology can ever be reduced. It there- 
fore devolves on us very briefly to adjudicate upon the 
contending opinions. And this it is not difficult to do ; 
for throughout the pleading on both sides I have been 
careful to exclude all arguments and considerations which 
are not logically valid. It is therefore impossible for 
me now to pass any criticisms on the pleading of either 
side which have not already been passed by the pleading 
of the other. But nevertheless, in my capacity of an 
impartial judge, I feel it desirable to conclude this 
chapter with a few general considerations. 

In the first place, I think that the theist's antecedent 
objection to a scientific mode of reasoning on the score 
of its symbolism, may be regarded as fairly balanced by 
the atheist's antecedent objection to a metaphysical mode 
of reasoning on the score of its postulating an unknow- 
able cause. And it must be allowed that the force of this 
antecedent objection is considerably increased by the re- 
flection that the land of unknowable cause which is thus 
postulated is that which the human mind has always 
shown an overweening tendency to postulate as a cause 
of natural phenomena. 

I think, therefore, that neither disputant has the right 
to regard the a 'priori standing of his opponent's theory 
as much more suspicious than that of his own ; for it is 
obvious that neither disputant has the means whereby to 
estimate the actual value of these antecedent objections. 

1 Herbert Spencer's Essays, voL iii. pp. 246-249 (1874). 



94 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

With regard, then, to the a posteriori evidence in favour 
of the rival theories, I think that the final test of their 
validity — i.e., the inconceivability of their respective 
negations — fails equally in the case of both theories ; for 
in the case of each theory any proposition which embodies 
it must itself contain an infinite, i.e., an inconceivable — 
term. Thus, whether we speak of an Infinite Mind as 
the cause of evolution, or of evolution as due to an infinite 
duration of physical processes, we are alike open to the 
charge of employing unthinkable propositions. 

Hence, two uhthinkables are presented to our choice ; one 
of which is an eternity of matter and of force,i and the other 
an Infinite Mind, so that in this respect again the two 
theories are tolerably parallel ; and therefore, all that can 
be concluded with rigorous certainty upon the subject is, 
that neither theory has anything to gain as against the 
other from an appeal to the test of inconceivability. 

Yet we have seen that this is a test than which none 
can be more ultimate. What then shall we say is the 
final outcome of this discussion concerning the rational 
standing of the teleological argument? The answer, I 
think, to this question is, that in strict reasoning the 
teleological argument, in its every shape, is inadequate 
to form a basis of Theism ; or, in other words, that the 

1 This is the truly inconceivable infinite in respect of its powers of 

element in the physical theory. As supervision, direction, &c. ; but the 

I have shown in the pleading on statement also involves a necessary 

the side of Atheism, the supposed alternative between two addi- 

inconceivability of cosmic harmony tional inconceivable propositions — 

being due to mindless forces, is not viz., either that such a Mind must 

of such a kind as wholly refuses to have been eternal, or that it must 

be surmounted by symbolic con- have come into existence without a 

ceptions of a sufficiently abstract cause. In this respect, therefore, it 

character. But it is impossible, by would seem that the theory of Athe- 

the aid of any symbols, to gain a ism has the advantage over that of 

conception of an eternal existence. Theism ; for while the former theory 

And I may here point out, that if is under the necessity of embodying 

Mind is said to be the cause of only a single inconceivable term, the 

evolution, not only does th^ slate- letter theory is under the necessity 

ment involve the inconceivable pro- of embodying two such terms, 
position that such a Mind must be 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. ' 95 

logical cogency of this argument is insufficient to justify 
a wholly impartial mind in accepting the theory of Theism 
on so insecure a foundation. Nevertheless, if the further 
question were directly put to me, 'After having heard 
the pleading both for and against the most refined ex- 
pression of the argument from teleology, with what degree 
of strictly rational probability do you accredit it ? ' — I 
should reply as follows : — ' The question which you put I 
take to be a question which it is wholly impossible to 
answer, and this for the simple reason that the degree 
of even rational probability may here legitimately vary 
with the character of the mind which contemplates it.' 
This statement, no doubt, sounds paradoxical ; but I think 
it is justified by the following considerations. When we 
say that one proposition is more conceivable than another, 
we may mean either of two very difi'erent things, and this 
quite apart from the distinction previously drawn be- 
tween symbolic conceptions and realisable conceptions. 
For we may mean that one of the two propositions pre- 
sents terms which cannot possibly be rendered into 
thought at all in the relation which the proposition 
alleges to subsist between them; or we may mean that 
one of the two propositions presents terms in a relation 
which is more congruous with the habitual tenor of our 
thoughts than does the other proposition. Thus, as an 
example of the former usage, we may say. It is more 
conceivable that two and two should make four than 
that two and two should make five; and, as an example 
of the latter usage, we may say. It is more conceiv- 
able that a man should be able to walk than that he 
should be able to fly. Now, for the sake of distinction, 
I shall call the first of these usages the test of absolute 
inconceivability, and the second the test of relative, in- 
conceivability. Doubtless, when the word "inconceiva- 
bility " is used in the sense of relative inconceivability, it 
is incorrectly used, unless it is qualified in some way; 
because, if used without qualification, there is danger of 



96 



THE ARGUMENT FROM 



its being confused with inconceivability in its absolute 
sense. Nevertheless, if used with some qualifying epithet, 
it becomes quite unexceptionable. For the process of con- 
ception being in all cases the process of establishing 
relations in thought, we may properly say, It is relatively 
more conceivable that a man should walk than that a 
man should fly, since it is more, easy to establish the 
necessary relations in thought in the case of the former 
than in the case of the latter proposition. The only 
difference, then, between what I have called absolute 
inconceivability and what I have calle'd relative incon- 
ceivability consists in this — that while the latter admits 
of degrees, the former does not.i 



^ Mr. Herbert Spencer has treated 
of this subject in his memorable con- 
troversy with Mill on the " Universal 
Postulate " (see Psychology, § 427), 
and refuses to entertain the term 
" Inconceivable " as applicable to any 
propositions other than those where- 
in "the terms cannot, by any effort, 
be brought before consciousness in 
that relation which the proposition 
asserts between them." That is to 
say, he limits the term " Inconceiv- 
able " to that which is absolutely 
inconceivable ; and he then proceeds 
to affirm that all propositions "which 
admit of being framed in thought, 
but which are so much at variance 
with experience, in which its terms 
have habitually been otherwise unit- 
ed, that its terms cannot be put in 
the alleged relation without effort," 
ought properly to be termed " m- 
credible" propositions. Now I can- 
not see that the class " Incredible 
propositions '' is, as this definition 
asserts, identical with the class which 
I have termed " Relatively inconceiv- 
able " propositions. For example, it 
is a familiar observation that, on look- 
ing at the setting sun, we experience 
an almost, if not quite, insuperable 
difficulty in conceiving the sun's ap- 
parent motion as due to our own 
actual motion, and yet we experience 



no difficulty in believing it. Con- 
versely, I entertain but little diffi- 
culty in conceiving — i.e., imagining — 
a shark with a mammalian heart, and 
yet it would require extremely strong 
evidence to make me believe that such 
an animal exists. The truth appears 
to be that our language is deficient 
in terms whereby to distinguish be- 
tween that which is wholly incon- 
ceivable from that which is with 
difficulty conceivable. This, it seems 
to me, was the principal reason of 
the dispute between Spencer and 
Mill above alluded to, — the former 
writer having always used the word 
"Inconceivable" in the sense of 
" Absolutely inconceivable," and the 
latter having apparently used it — 
in his Logic and elsewhere — in both 
senses. I have endeavoured to remedy 
this defect in the language by intro- 
ducing the qualifying words, "Abso- 
lutely" and "Relatively," which, 
although not appropriate words, are 
the best that I am able to supply. 
The conceptive faculty of the indi- 
vidual having been determined by the 
experience of the race, that which is 
inconceivable by the intelligence of 
the race may be said to be inconceiv- 
able to the intelligence of the indi- 
vidual in an absolute sense ; no effort 
on his part can enable him to sur- 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. 97 

With this distinction clearly understood, I may now 
proceed to observe that in everyday life we constantly 
apply the test of relative inconceivability as a test of 
truth. And in the vast majority of cases this test of 
relative inconceivability is, for all practical purposes, as 
valid a test of truth as is the test of absolute conceiv- 
ability. For as every man is more or less in harmony 
with his environment, his habits of thought with regard 
to his environment are for the most part stereotyped cor- 
rectly ; so that the most ready and the most trustworthy 
gauge of probability that he has is an immediate appeal 
to consciousness as to whether he feels the probability. 
Thus every man learns for himself to endow his own 
sense of probability with a certain undefined but massive 
weight of authority. Now it is this test of relative con- 
ceivability which all men apply in varying degrees to the 
question of Theism. For if, from education and organised 
habits of thought, the probability in this matter appears 
to a man to incline in a certain direction, when this pro- 
bability is called in question, the whole body of this 
organised system of i:hought rises in opposition to the 
questioning, and being individually conscious of this 
strong feeling of subjective opposition, the man declares 
the sceptical propositions to be more inconceivable to him 
than are the counter-propositions. And in so saying he 
is, of course, perfectly right. Hence I conceive that the 
acceptance or the rejection of metaphysical teleology as 
probable will depend entirely upon individual habits of 
thought. The test of absolute inconceivability making 

mount the organically imposed con- which the individual intelligence has 

ditions of his conceptive faculty, been subjected, there is nothing in 

But that which is inconceivable the conditions of human intelligence 

merely to one individual or genera- as such to prevent the thing from 

tion, while it is not inconceivable to being conceived. [While this work 

the intelligence of the race, nuiy has been passing through the press, I 

properly be said to be inconceivable have found that Mr. G. H. Lewes has 

to the intelligence of that individual already employed the above terms in 

or generation only in a relative, sense ; precisely the same sense as that which 

apart from the special conditions to is above explained. — 1878.] 

G 



98 THE ARGUMENT FROM 

equally for and against the doctrine of Theism, disputants 
are compelled to fall back on the test of relative incon- 
ceivability ; and as the direction in which the more 
inconceivable proposition will here seem to lie will be 
determined by previous habits of thought, it follows that 
while to a theist metaphysical teleology will appear a 
probable argument, to an atheist it will appear an impro- 
bable one. Thus to a theist it will no doubt appear more 
conceivable that the Supreme Mind should be such that 
in some of its attributes it resembles the human mind, 
while in other of its attributes — among which he will 
place omnipresence, omnipotence, and directive agency 
— it transcends the human mind as greatly as the latter 
" transcends mechanical motion ; " and therefore that 
although it is true, as a matter of logical terminology, that 
we ought to designate such an entity "Not mind" or 
" Blank," still, as a matter of psychology, we may come 
nearer to the truth by assimilating in thought this entity 
with the nearest analogies which experience supplies, than 
by assimilating it in thought with any other entity^ 
such as force or matter — which are felt to be in all likeli- 
hood still more remote from it in nature. On the other 
hand, to an atheist it will no doubt appear more conceiv- 
able, because more simple, to accept the dogma of an 
eternal self-existence of something which we call force 
and matter, and with this dogma to accept the implication 
of a necessary self- evolution of cosmic harmony, than to 
resort to the additional and no less inconceivable supposi- 
tion of a self-existing Agent which must be regarded both as 
Mind and as Kot-mind at the same time. But in both cases, 
in whatever degree this test of relative inconceivability of a 
negative is held by the disputants to be valid in solving 
the problem of Theism, in that degree is each man entitled 
to his respective estimate of the probability in question. 
And thus we arrive at the judgment that the rational 
probability of Theism legitimately varies with the charac- 
ter of the mind which contemplates it. For, as the test of 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. ^ 99 

absolute inconceivability is equally annihilative in which- 
ever direction it is applied, the test of relative inconceiv- 
ability is the only one that remains ; and as the formal 
conditions of a metaphysical teleology are undoubtedly 
present on the one hand, and the formal conditions of a 
physical explanation of cosmic harmony are no less un- 
doubtedly present on the other hand, it follows that a 
theist and an atheist have an equal right to employ this 
test of relative inconceivability. And as there is no more 
ultimate court of appeal whereby to decide the question 
than the universe as a whole, each man has here an 
equal argumentative right to abide by the decision which 
that court awards to him individually — to accept what- 
ever probability the sum-total of phenomena appears to 
present to his particular understanding. And it is need- 
less to say that experience shows, even among well- 
informed and accurate reasoners, how large an allowance 
must thus be made for personal equations. To some men 
the facts of external nature seem to proclaim a God with 
clarion voice, while to other men the same facts bring no 
whisper of such a message. All, therefore, that a logician 
can here do is to remark, that the individuals in each 
class — provided they bear in mind the strictly relative 
character of their belief — have a similar right to be re- 
garded as holding a rational creed : the grounds of belief 
in this case logically vary with the natural disposition 
and the subsequent training of different minds.^ 

It only remains to show that disputants on either side 

1 I should here like to have added physical science. The question, 

some consideration on Sir W. Hamil- however, is, Which class of studies 

ton's remarks concerning the effect ought to be considered the more 

of training upon the mind in this authoritative in this matter? I cer- 

connection ; but, to avoid being tedi- tainly cannot see what title classics, 

ous, I shall condense what I have history, political economy, &c.,have 

to say into a few sentences. What to be regarded at all ; and although 

Hamilton maintains is very true, the mental and moral sciences have 

viz., that the study of classics, moral doubtless a better claim, still I think 

and mental philosophy, &c., renders they must be largely subordinate to 

the mind more capable of believing those sciences which deal with the 

in a God than does the study of whole domain of nature besides. 



joo THE ARGUMENT FROM 

are apt to endow this test of relative inconceivability 
with far more than its real logical worth. Being ac- 
customed to apply this test of truth in daily life, and 
there finding it a trustworthy test, most men are apt to 
forget that its value as a test must clearly diminish in 
proportion to the distance from experience at which it is 
applied. This, indeed, we saw to be the case even with 
the test of absolute inconceivability (see Chapter V.), but 
much more must it be the case with this test of relative 
inconceivability. For, without comment, it is manifest 
that our acquired sense of probability, as distinguished 
from our innate sense of possibility, with regard to any 
particular question of a transcendental nature, cannot be 
at all comparable with its value in the case of ordinary 
questions, with respect to which our sense of probability 
is being always rectified by external facts. Although, 
therefore, it is true that both those who reject and those 
who retain a belief in Theism on grounds of relative con- 
ceivability are equally entitled to be regarded as display- 
ing a rational attitude of mind, in whatever degree either 
party considers their belief as of a higher validity than 
the grounds of psychology from which it takes its rise, in 
that degree must the members of that party be deemed 
irrational. In other words, not only must a man be care- 
ful not to confuse the test of relative inconceivability 
with that of absolute conceivability — not to suppose that 
his sense of probability in this matter is determined by 
an innate psychological inability to conceive a proposition, 
when in reality it is only determined by the difficulty of 
dissociating ideas which have long been habitually asso- 
ciated; — but he must also be careful to remember that 
the test of relative inconceivability in this matter is only 

Further, I should say that there is because we so seldom find classics, 

DO very strong affirmative influence &c., and physical science united ; the 

created on the mind in this respect negative influence of the latter, in 

by any class of studies ; and that the the case of classical minds, being 

only reason why we so generally find therefore generally absent. 
Theism and classics, &c., united, is 



METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY. loi 

valid as justifying a beKef of the most diffident possible 
kind. 

And from this the practical deduction is — tolerance. 
Let no man think that he has any argumentative right to 
expect that the mere subjective habit or tone of his own 
mind should exert any influence on that of his fellow ; 
but rather let him always remember that the only legiti- 
mate weapons of his intellectual warfare are those the 
material of which is derived from the external world, and 
only the/brm of which is due to the forging process of his 
own mind. And if in battle such weapons seem to be 
unduly blunted on the hardened armoury of traditional 
beliefs, or on the no less hardened armoury of confirmed 
scepticism, let him remember further that he must not 
too confidently infer that the fault does not lie in the 
character of his own weapons. To drop the figure, let 
none of us forget in how much need we all stand of this 
caution : — Knowing how gre^atly the value of arguments is 
affected, even to the most impartial among us, by the 
frame of mind in which we regard them, let all of us be 
jealously careful not to over-estimate the certainty that our 
frame or habit of mind is actually superior to that of our 
neighbour. And, in conclusion, it is surely needless to 
insist on the yet greater need there is for most of us to 
bear in mind this further caution : — Knowing with what 
great subjective opposition arguments are met when they 
conflict with our established modes of thought, let us all 
be jealously careful to guard the sanctuary of our judg- 
ment from the polluting tyranny of habit. 



( 102 ) 



CHAPTER VII. 

GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 

§ 48. Our analysis is now at an end, and a very few 
words will here suffice to convey an epitomised recollection 
of the numerous facts and conclusions which we have 
found it necessary to contemplate. We first disposed of 
the conspicuously absurd supposition that the origin of 
things, or the mystery of existence, admits of being ex- 
plained by the theory of Theism in any further degree 
than by the theory of Atheism. ISText it was shown that 
the argument " Our heart requires a God " is invalid, 
seeing that such a subjective necessity, even if made out, 
could not be sufficient to prove — or even to render pro- 
bable — an objective existence. And with regard to the 
further argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations 
point to God as to their explanatory cause, it became 
necessary to observe that the argument could only be 
admissible after the possibility of the operation of natural 
causes had been excluded. Similarly the argument from 
the supposed intuitive necessity of individual thought 
was found to be untenable, first, because, even if the sup- 
posed necessity were a real one, it would only possess an 
individual applicability ; and second, that, as a matter of 
fact, it is extremely improbable that the supposed necessity 
is a real necessity even for the individual who asserts it, 
while it is absolutely certain that it is not such to the 
vast majority of the race. The argument from the 
general consent of mankind, being so obviously fallacious 
both as to facts and principles, was passed over without 



GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 103 

comment; while the argument from a first cause was 
found to involve a logical suicide. Lastly, the argument 
that, as human voKtion is a cause in nature, therefore all 
causation is probably volitional in character, was shown 
to consist in a stretch of inference so outrageous that the 
argument had to be pronounced worthless. 

Proceeding next to examine the less superficial argu- 
ments in favour of Theism, it was first shown that the 
syllogism. All known minds are caused by an unknown 
mind ; our mind is a known mind ; therefore our mind is 
caused by an unknown mind, — ^is a syllogism that is inad- 
missible for two reasons. In the first place, "it does not 
account for mind (in the abstract) to refer it to a prior 
mind for its origin ; " and therefore, although the hypo- 
thesis, if admitted, would be an explanation of known mind, 
it is useless as an argument for the existence of the un- 
known mind, the assumption of which forms the basis of 
that explanation. Again, in the next place, if it be said 
that mind is so far an entity sui generis that it must be 
either self-existing or caused by another mind, there is no 
assignable warrant- for the assertion. And this is the 
second objection to the above syllogism; for anything 
within the whole range of the possible may, for aught 
that we can tell, be competent to produce a self-conscious 
intelligence. Thus an objector to the above syllogism 
need not hold any theory of things at all; but even as 
opposed to the definite theory of materialism, the above 
syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis to stand 
upon. We know that what we call matter and force are 
to all appearance eternal, while we have no corresponding 
evidence of a " mind that is even apparently eternal." 
Further, within experience mind is invariably associated 
with highly differentiated collocations of matter and dis- 
tributions of force, and many facts go to prove, and none 
to negative, the conclusion that the grade of intelligence 
invariably depends npon, or at least is associated with, 
a corresponding grade of cerebral development. There is 



I04 GENERAL SUMMARY 

thus both a qualitative and a quantitative relation between 
intelligence and cerebral organisation. And if it is said 
that matter and motion cannot produce consciousness 
because it is inconceivable that they should, we have seen 
at some length that this is no conclusive consideration as 
applied to a subject of a confessedly transcendental nature, 
and that in the present case it is particularly inconclusive, 
because, as it is speculatively certain that the substance 
of mind must be unknowable, it seems d 'priori probable 
that, whatever is the cause of the unknow^able reality, this 
cause should be more difficult to render into thought in 
that relation than would some other hypothetical substance 
which is imagined as more akin to mind. And if it is 
said that the more conceivable cause is the more probable 
cause, we have seen that it is in this case impossible to 
estimate the validity of the remark. Lastly, the state- 
ment that the cause must contain actually all that its 
effects can contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic 
and contradicted by everyday experience; while the 
argument from the supposed freedom of the will and the 
existence of the moral sense was negatived both deductively 
by the theory of evolution, and inductively by the doctrine 
of utilitarianism. On the whole, then, with regard to the 
argument from the existence of the human mind, we were 
compelled to decide that it is destitute of any assignable 
weight, there being nothing more to lead to the conclusion 
that our mind has been caused by another mind, than to 
the conclusion that it has been caused by anything else 
whatsoever. 

With regard to the argument from Design, it was 
observed that Mill's presentation of it is merely a resus- 
citation of the argument as presented by Paley, Bell, 
and Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first-named 
writer treated this whole subject with a feebleness and 
inaccuracy very surprising in him ; for while he has failed 
to assign anything like due weight to the inductive 
evidence of organic evolution, he did not hesitate to rush 



AND CONCLUSIONS. 105 

into a supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. 
Moreover, he has failed signally in his analysis of the 
Design argument, seeing that, in common with all previous 
writers, he failed to observe that it is utterly impossible 
for us to know the relations in which the supposed 
Designer stands to the Designed, — much less to argue 
from the fact that the Supreme Mind, even supposing it to 
exist, caused the observable products by any particular 
intellectual process. In other words, all advocates of the 
Design argument have failed to perceive that, even if 
we grant nature to be due to a creating Mind, still we 
have no shadow of a right to conclude that this Mind 
can only have exerted its creative power by means of such 
and such cogitative operations. How absurd, therefore, 
must it be to raise the supposed evidence of such cogita- 
tive operations into evidences of the existence of a creating 
Mind ! If a theist retorts that it is, after all, of very little 
importance whether or not we are able to divine the 
methods of creation, so long as the facts are there to attest 
that, 171 some way or other, the observable phenomena of 
nature must be due to Intelligence of some kind as their 
ultimate cause, then I am the first to endorse this re- 
mark. ^It has always appeared to me one of the most 
unaccountable things in the history of speculation that so 
many competent writers can have insisted upon Design 
as an argument for Theism, when they must all have 
known perfectly well that they have no means of ascer- 
taining the subjective psychology of that Supreme Mind 
whose existence the argument is adduced to demonstrate. / 
The truth is, that the argument from teleology must, and 
can only, rest upon the observable y^c^s of nature, without 
reference to the intellectual processes by which these facts 
may be supposed to have been accomplished. ' But, look- 
ing to the " present state of our knowledge," this is merely 
to change the teleological argument from its gross 
Paleyerian form, into the argument from the ubiquitous 
operation of general laws. And we saw that this trans- 



lo6 GENERAL SUMMARY 

formation is now a rational necessity. How far the great 
principle of natural selection may have been instrumental 
in the evolution of organic forms, is not here, as Mill 
erroneously imagined, the question ; the question is simply 
as to whether we are to accept the theory of special 
creation or the theory of organic evolution. And forasmuch 
as no competent judge at the present time can hesitate for 
one moment in answering this question, the argument 
from a proximate teleology must be regarded as no longer 
having any rational existence. 

How then does it fare with the last of the arguments — 
the argument from an ultimate teleology ? Doubtless at 
first sight this argument seems a very powerful one, inas- 
much as it is a generic argument, which embraces not only 
biological phenomena, but all the phenomena of the uni- 
verse. But nevertheless we are constrained to acknow- 
ledge that its apparent power dwindles to nothing in view 
of the indisputable fact that, if force and matter have been 
eternal, all and every natural law must have resulted by 
way of necessary consequence. It will be remembered 
that I dwelt at considerable length and with much earnest- 
ness upon this truth, not only because of its enormous 
importance in its bearing upon our subject, but also be- 
cause no one has hitherto considered it in that relation. 

The next step, however, was to mitigate the severity of 
the conclusion that was liable to be formed upon the utter 
and hopeless collapse of all the possible arguments in 
favour of Theism. Having fully demonstrated' that there 
is no shadow of a positive argument in support of the 
theistic theory, there arose the danger that some persons 
might erroneously conclude that for this reason the theistic 
theory must be untrue. It therefore became necessary to 
point out, that although, as far as we can see, nature does 
not require an Intelligent Cause to account for any of her 
phenomena, yet it is possible that, if we could see farther, 
we should see that nature could not be what she is unless 
she had owed her existence to an Intelligent Cause. Or, 



AND CONCLUSIONS, 107 

in other words, the probability there is that an Intelligent 
Cause is unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of 
nature, is only equal to the probability there is that the 
doctrine of the persistence of force is everywhere and 
eternally true. 

As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we altogether 
quitted the region of experience, and ignoring even the 
very foundations of science, and so all the most certain 
of relative truths, we carried the discussion into the 
transcendental region of purely formal considerations. 
And here we laid down the canon, " that the value of any 
probability, in its last analysis, is determined by the 
number, the importance, and the definiteness of the 
relations known, as compared with those of the relations 
unknown;" and, consequently, that in cases where the 
unknown relations are more numerous, more important, or 
more indefinite than are the known relations, the value of 
our inference varies inversely as the difference in these 
respects between the relations compared. From which 
canon it followed, that as the problem of Theism is the 
most ultimate of all problems, and so contains in its 
unknown relations all that is to man unknown and un- 
knowable, these relations must be pronounced the most 
indefinite of all relations that it is possible for man to 
contemplate ; and, consequently, that although we have 
here the entire range of experience from which to argue, 
we are unable to estimate the real value of any argument 
whatsoever. The unknown relations in our attempted 
induction being wholly indefinite, both in respect of their 
number and importance, as compared with the known 
relations, it is impossible for us to determine any definite 
probability either for or against the being of a God. 
Therefore, although it is true that, so far as human science 
can penetrate or human thought infer, we can perceive no 
evidence of God, yet we have no right on this account to 
conclude that there is no God. The probability, therefore, 
that nature is devoid of Deity, while it is of the strongest 



io8 GENERAL SUMMARY 

kind if regarded scientifically — amounting, in fact, to a 
scientific demonstration, — is nevertheless wholly worthless 
if regarded logically. Notwithstanding it is as true as is 
the fundamental basis of all science and of all experience 
that, if there is a God, his existence, considered as a cause 
of the universe, is superfluous, it may nevertheless be 
true that, if there had never been a God, the universe 
could never have existed. 

Hence these formal considerations proved conclusively 
that, no matter how great the probability of Atheism might 
appear to be in a relative sense, we have no means of 
estimating such probability in an absolute sense. From 
which position there emerged the possibility of another 
argument in favour of Theism — or rather let us say, of 
a reappearance of the teleological argument in another 
form. For it may be said, seeing that these formal 
considerations exclude legitimate reasoning either for or 
against Deity in an absolute sense, while they do not 
exclude such reasoning in a relative sense, if there yet 
remain any theistic deductions which may properly be 
drawn from experience, these may now be adduced to 
balance the atheistic deductions from the persistence of 
force. For although the latter deductions have clearly 
shown the existence of Deity to be superfluous in a 
scientific sense, the formal considerations in question 
have no less clearly opened up beyond the sphere of 
science a possible locus for the existence of Deity; so 
that if there are any facts supplied by experience for 
which the atheistic deductions appear insufficient to 
account, we are still free to account for them in a relative 
sense by the hypothesis of Theism. And, it may be urged, 
we do find such an unexplained residuum in the correla- 
tion of general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. 
It signifies nothing, the argument may run, that we are 
unable to conceive the methods whereby the supposed 
Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony ; nor does it 
signify that its operation must now be relegated to a 



AND CONCLUSIONS, 109 

STiper- scientific province. What does signify is that, 

taking a general view of nature, we find it impossible to 

conceive of the extent and variety of her harmonious 

processes as other than products of intelligent causation. 

Now this sublimated form of the teleological argument, it 

will be remembered, I denoted a metaphysical teleology, 

in order sharply to distinguish it from all previous forms 

of that argument, which, in contradistinction I denoted 

/ 
scientific teleologies. ' And the distinction, it will be 

remembered, consisted in this — that while all previous 
forms of teleology, by resting on a basis which was not 
beyond the possible reach of science, laid themselves open 
to the possibility of scientific refutation, the meta- 
physical system of teleology, by resting on a basis which 
is clearly beyond the possible reach of science, can never 
be susceptible of scientific refutation. And that this 
metaphysical system of teleology does rest on such a 
basis is indisputable ; for while it accepts the most ulti- 
mate truths of which science can ever be cognisant — viz., 
the persistence of force and the consequently necessary 
genesis of natural law, — it nevertheless maintains that 
the necessity of regarding Mind as the ultimate cause of 
things is not on this account removed ; and, therefore, 
that if science now requires the operation of a Supreme 
Mind to be posited in a super-scientific sphere, then in a 
super-scientific sphere it ought to be posited. No doubt 
this hypothesis at first sight seems gratuitous, seeing that, 
so far as science can penetrate, there is no need of any 
such hypothesis at all — cosmic harmony resulting as a 
physically necessary consequence from the combined 
action of natural laws, which in turn result as a physically 
necessary consequence of the persistence of force and the 
primary qualities of matter. But although it is thus 
indisputably true that metaphysical teleology is wholly 
gratuitous if considered scientifically, it may not be true 
that it is wholly gratuitous if considered psychologically. 
In other words, if it is more conceivable that Mind should 



no GENERAL SUMMARY 

be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the 
persistence of force should be so, then it is not irrational 
to accept the more conceivable hypothesis in preference 
to the less conceivable one, provided that the choice is 
made with the dijB&dence which is required by the con- 
siderations adduced in Chapter Y. 

I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of metaphy- 
sical teleology, although in a physical sense gratuitous, 
may be in a psychological sense legitimate. But as against 
the fundamental position on which alone this argument 
can rest — viz., the position that the fundamental postulate 
of Atheism is more inconceivable than is the fundamen- 
tal postulate of Theism — we have seen two important 
objections to lie. 

For, in the first place, the sense in which the word 
" inconceivable " is here used is that of the impossibility 
of framing realisable relations in the thought ; not that of 
the impossibility of framing abstract relations in thought. 
In the same sense, though in a lower degree, it is true 
that the complexity of the human organisation and its 
functions is inconceivable ; but in this sense the word 
"inconceivable" has much less weight in an argument 
than it has in its true sense. And, without waiting again 
to dispute (as we did in the case of the speculative 
standing of Materialism) how far even the genuine test 
of inconceivability ought to be allowed to make against 
an inference which there is a body of scientific evidence to 
substantiate, we went on to the second objection against 
this fundamental position of metaphysical teleology. 
This objection, it will be remembered, was, that it is as 
impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as an effect of 
Mind, as it is to conceive of it as an effect of mindless 
evolution. The argument from inconceivability, there- 
fore, admits of being turned with quite as terrible an 
effect on Theism, as it can possibly be made to exert on 
Atheism. 

Hence this more refined form of teleology which we 



AND CONCLUSIONS. in 

are considering, and which we saw to be the last of the 
possible arguments in favour of Theism, is met on its 
own ground by a very crushing opposition : by its meta- 
physical character it has escaped the opposition of physical 
science, only to encounter a new opposition in the region 
of pure psychology to which it fled. As a conclusion to 
our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved on us to deter- 
mine the relative magnitudes of these opposing forces. 
And in doing this we first observed that, if the supporters 
of metaphysical teleology objected a 'priori to the method 
whereby the genesis of natural law was deduced from 
the datum of the persistence of force, in that this method 
involved an unrestricted use of illegitimate symbolic con- 
ceptions ; then it is no less open to an atheist to object 
Oj priori to the method whereby a directing Mind was 
inferred from the datum of cosmic harmony, in that 
this method involved the postulation of an unknowable 
cause, — and this of a character which the whole history 
of human thought has proved the human mind to exhibit 
an overweening tendency to postulate as the cause of 
natural phenomena. On these grounds, therefore, I 
concluded that, so far as their respective standing a priori 
is concerned, both theories may be regarded as about 
equally suspicious. And similar with regard to their 
standing a posteriori; for as both theories require to 
embody at least one infinite term, they must each alike 
be pronounced absolutely inconceivable. But, finally, if 
the question were put to me which of the two theories I 
regarded as the more rational, I observed that this is a 
question which no one man can answer for another. For 
as the test of absolute inconceivability is equally destruc- 
tive of both theories, if a man wishes to choose between 
them, his choice can only be determined by what I have de- 
signated relative inconceivability — i.e., in accordance with 
the verdict given by his individual sense of probability 
as determined by his previous habits of thought. And 
forasmuch as the test of relative inconceivability may be 



112 GENERAL SUMMARY 

held in this matter legitimately to vary with the char- 
acter of the mind which applies it, the strictly rational 
probability of the question to which it is applied varies 
in like manner. Or, otherwise presented, the only 
alternative for any man in this matter is either to 
discipline himself into an attitude of pure scepticism, and 
thus to refuse in thought to entertain either a probability 
or an improbability concerning the existence of a God ; 
or else to incline in thought towards an affirmation or a 
negation of God, according as his previous habits of 
thought have rendered such an inclination more facile in 
the one direction than in the other. And althougjh, under 
such circumstances, I should consider that man the more 
rational who carefully suspended his judgment, I conclude 
that if this course is departed from, neither the meta- 
physical teleologist nor the scientific atheist has any 
perceptible advantage over the other in respect of 
rationality. For as the formal conditions of a metaphy- 
sical teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, 
and the formal conditions of a speculative atheism are 
as undoubtedly present on the other, there is thus in both 
cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein the pendulum 
of thought is free to swing in whichever direction it may 
be made to swing by the momentum of preconceived ideas. 
§ 49. Such is the outcome of our investigation, and con- 
sidering the abstract nature of the subject, the immense 
divergence of opinion which at the present time is mani- 
fested with regard to it, as well as the confusing amount 
of good, bad, and indifferent literature on both sides of the 
controversy which is extant ; — considering these things, I 
do not think that the result of our inquiry can be justly 
complained of on the score of its lacking precision. At a 
time like the present, when traditional beliefs respecting 
Theism are so generally accepted and so commonly con- 
cluded, as a matter of course, to have a large and valid 
basis of induction whereon to rest, I cannot but feel that 
a perusal of this short essay, by showing how very concise 



AND CONCLUSIONS. 113 

the scientific status of the subject really is, will do more 
to settle the minds of most readers as to the exact stand- 
ing at the present time of all the probabilities of the 
question, than could a perusal of all the rest of the 
literature upon this subject. And, looking to the present 
condition of speculative philosophy, I regard it as of the 
utmost importance to have clearly shown that the advance 
of science has now entitled us to assert, without the least 
hesitation, that the hypothesis of Mind in nature is as 
certainly superfluous to account for any of the phenomena 
of nature, as the scientific doctrine of the persistence of 
force and the indestructibility of matter is certainly true. 

On the other hand, if any one is inclined to complain 
that the logical aspect of the question has not proved itself 
so unequivocally definite as has the scientific, I must ask 
him to consider that, in any matter which does not admit 
of actual demonstration, some margin must of necessity 
be left for variations of individual opinion. And, if he 
bears this consideration in mind, I feel sure that he can- 
not properly complain of my not having done my utmost 
in this case to define as sharply as possible the character 
and the limits of this margin. 

§ 54. And now, in conclusion, I feel it is desirable to state 
that any antecedent bias with regard to Theism which 
I individually possess is unquestionably on the side of 
traditional beliefs. It is therefore with the utmost sorrow 
that I find myself compelled to accept the conclusions 
here worked out ; and nothing would have induced me to 
pubHsh them, save the strength of my conviction that it 
is the duty of every member of society to give his fellows 
the benefit of his labours for whatever they may be worth. 
Just as I am confident that truth must in the end be the 
most profitable for the race, so I am persuaded that every 
individual endeavour to attain it, provided only that such 
endeavour is unbiassed and sincere, ought without hesi- 
tation to be made the common property of all men, no 
matter in what direction the results of its promulga- 



ii4 GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 

tion may appear to tend. And so far as the ruination of 
individual happiness is concerned, no one can have a more 
lively perception than myself of the possibly disastrous 
tendency of my work. So far as I am individually con- 
cerned, the result of this analysis has been to show that, 
whether I regard the problem of Theism on the lower 
plane of strictly relative probability, or on the higher plane 
of purely formal considerations, it equally becomes my 
obvious duty to stifle all belief of the kind which I con- 
ceive to be the noblest, and to discipline my intellect with 
regard to this matter into an attitude of the purest 
scepticism. And forasmuch as I am far from being able 
to agree with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine 
of the " new faith " is a desirable substitute for the wan- 
ing splendour of " the old," I am not ashamed to confess 
that with this virtual negation of God the universe 
to me has lost its soul of loveliness ; and although 
from henceforth the precept to " work while it is day " 
will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the 
terribly intensified meaning of the words that " the night 
Cometh when no man can work," yet when at times I 
think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast 
between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was 
mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find 
it, — at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to 
avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is suscep- 
tible. For whether it be due to my intelligence not 
being sufficiently advanced to meet the requirements of 
the age, or whether it be due to the memory of those 
sacred associations which to me at least were the sweetest 
that life has given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for 
others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in those 
words of Hamilton, — Philosophy having become a medita- 
tion, not merely of death, but of annihilation, the precept 
linow thyself h.Q^^ become transformed into the terrific oracle 
to CEdipus — 

" Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art," 



I 



I 



APPENDIX 



AND 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. 



( 117 ) 



APPENDIX. 



A CRITICAL EXPOSITION OF A FALLACY IN LOCKE'S 
USE OF THE ARGUMENT AGAINST THE POSSI- 
BILITY OF MATTER THINKING ON GROUNDS OF 
ITS BEING INCONCEIVABLE THAT IT SHOULD. 

Lest it should be thought that I am doing injustice to 
the views of this illustrious theist, I here quote his own 
words : — " We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but 
possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere 
material being thinks or no, it being impossible for us, by 
the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to 
discover whether omnipotency has not given to some 
systems of matter fitly disposed a power to perceive and 
think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed a 
thinking immaterial substance ; it being, in respect of our 
notions, not much more remote from our comprehension 
to conceive that God can, if He pleases, superadd to mat- 
ter a faculty of thinking, than that He should superadd to 
it another substance with a faculty of thinking ; since we 
know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of 
substance the Almighty has been pleased to give that 
power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely 
by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator. For I 
see no contradiction in it that the first eternal thinking 
being should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of 
created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, 
some degrees of sense, perception, and thought : though, 
as I think, I have proved, lib. iv., oh. lo and 14, &c., it 



ii8 A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 

is no less than a contradiction to suppose matter (wHch 
is evidently in its own nature void of sense and thought) 
should be that eternal first-thinking being. What cer- 
tainty of knowledge can any one have that some percep- 
tions, such as, e.g., pleasure and pain, should not be in 
some bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified 
and moved, as well as that they should be in an imma- 
terial substance upon the motion of the parts of body ? 
Body, as far as we can conceive, being able only to strike 
and affect body; and motion, according to the utmost 
reach of our ideas, being able to produce nothing but 
motion : so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or 
pain, or the idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit 
our reason, go beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly 
to the good pleasure of our Maker. For since we must 
allow He has annexed effects to motion which we can no 
way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we 
to conclude that He could not order them as well to be 
produced in a subject we cannot conceive capable of them, 
as well as in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of 
matter can any way operate upon ? I say not thif, that I 
would any way lessen the belief of the soul's immateriality, 
&c. ... It is a point which seems to me to be put out 
of the reach of our knowledge ; and he who will give 
himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark 
and intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his 
reason able to determine him fixedly for or against the 
soul's materiality. Since on which side soever he views 
it, either as an unextended substance or as a thinking 
extended matter, the difficulty to conceive either will, 
whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still drive him to 
the contrary side. An unfair way which some men take 
with themselves, who, because of the inconceivableness of 
something they find in one, throw themselves violently 
into the contrary hypothesis, though altogether as unin- 
telligible to an unbiassed understanding." 

This passage, I do not hesitate to say, is one of the 



A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 119 

most remarkable in the whole range of philosophical 
literature, in respect of showing how even the strongest 
and most candid intellect may have its reasoning faculty 
impaired by the force of a preformed conviction. Here we 
have a mind of unsurpassed penetration and candour, 
which has left us side by side two parallel trains of 
reasoning. In the one, the object is to show that the 
author's preformed conviction as to the being of a God is 
justifiable on grounds of reason; in the other, the object 
is to show that, granting the existence of a God, and it is 
not impossible that he may have endowed matter with the 
faculty of thinking. Now, in the former train of reason- 
ing, the whole proof rests entirely upon the fact that " it 
is impossible to conceive that ever bare incogitative matter 
should produce a thinking intelligent being." Clearly, if 
this proposition is true, it must destroy one or other of the 
trains of reasoning ; for it is common to them both, and 
in one of them it is made the sole ground for concluding 
that matter cannot think, while in the other it is made 
compatible w^ith the supposition that matter may think. 
This extraordinary inconsistency no doubt arose from the 
fact that the author was antecedently persuaded of the 
existence of an Omnipotent Mind, and having been long 
accustomed in his intellectual symbols to regard it pre- 
sumptuous in him to impose any limitations on this 
almighty power, when he asked himself whether it would 
be possible for this almighty power, if it so willed, to 
endow matter with the faculty of thinking, he argued that 
it might be possible, notwithstanding his being unable to 
conceive the possibility. But when he banished from his 
mind the idea of this personal and almighty power, and 
with that idea banished all its associations, he then felt 
that he had a right to argue more freely, and forthwith 
made his conceptive faculty a test of abstract possibility. 
Yet the sum total of abstract possibility, in relation to 
?Lim, must have been the same in the iiuo cases ; so that 
in whichever of the two trains of reasoning his argument 



120 A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 

was sound, in the other it must certainly have been 
null. 

We may well feel amazed that so able a thinker can 
have fallen into so obvious an error, and afterwards have 
persisted in it through pages and pages of his work. It 
will be instructive, however, to those who rely upon Locke's 
exposition of the argument from Inconceivability to see 
how effectually he has himself destroyed it. For this pur- 
pose, therefore, I shall make some further quotations from 
the same train of reasoning. The statement of Locke's 
opinion that the Almighty could endow matter with the 
faculty of thinking if He so willed, called down some 
remonstrances and rebukes from the then Bishop of Wor- 
cester. Locke's reply was a very lengthy one, and from 
it the following extracts are taken. I merely request the 
reader throughout to substitute for the words God, Creator, 
Almighty, Omnipotency, &c., the words Summum genus 
of Possibility. 

" But it is further urged that we cannot conceive how 
matter can think. I grant it, but to argue from thence 
that God therefore cannot give to matter a faculty of 
thinking is to say God's omnipotency is limited to a narrow 
compass because man's understanding is so, and brings 
down God's infinite power to the size of our capacities. . . . 

" If God can give no power to any parts of matter but 
what men can account for from the essence of matter in 
general ; if all such qualities and properties must destroy 
the essence, or change the essential properties of matter, 
which are to our conceptions above it, and we cannot 
conceive to be the natural consequence of that essence ; 
it is plain that the essence of matter is destroyed, and its 
essential properties changed, in most of the sensible parts 
of this our system. For it is visible that all the planets 
have revolutions about certain remote centres, which I 
would have any one explain or make conceivable by the 
bare essence, or natural powers depending on the essence 
of matter in general, without something added to that 



A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 121 

essence which we cannot conceive; for the moving of 
matter in a crooked line, or the attraction of matter by 
matter, is all that can be said in the case ; either of which 
it is above our reach to derive from the essence of matter 
or body in general, though one of these two must unavoid- 
ably be allowed to be superadded, in this instance, to the 
essence of matter in general. The omnipotent Creator 
advised not with us in the making of the world, and His 
ways are not the less excellent because they are past 
finding out. . . . 

" In all such cases, the superinducement of greater per- 
fections and nobler qualities destroys nothing of the 
essence or perfections that were there before, unless there 
can be showed a manifest repugnancy between tliem ; but 
all the proof offered for that is only that we cannot con - 
ceive how matter, without such superadded perfections, 
can produce such effects; which is, in truth, no more 
than to say matter in general, or every part of matter, as 
matter, has them not, but is no reason to prove that God, 
if He pleases, cannot superadd them to some parts of 
matter, unless it can be proved to be a contradiction 
that God should give to some parts of matter qualities 
and perfections which matter in general has not, though 
we cannot conceive how matter is invested with them, or 
how it operates by virtue of those new endowments ; nor 
is it to be wondered that we cannot, whilst we limit all 
its operations to those qualities it had before, and would 
explain them by the known properties of matter in gen- 
eral, without any such induced perfections. For if this 
be a right rule of reasoning, to deny a thing to be because 
we cannot conceive the manner how it comes to be, I 
shall desire them who use it to stick to this rule, and see 
what work it will make both in divinity as well as philo- 
sophy, and whether they can advance anything more in 
favour of scepticism. 

" For to keep within the present subject of the power 
of thinking and self-motion bestowed by omnipotent 



122 A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 

power in some parts of matter: the objection to this is, 
I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is the 
consequence ? Ergo, God cannot give it a power to think. 
Let this stand for a good reason, and then proceed in other 
cases by the same. 

"You cannot conceive how matter can attract matter 
at any distance, much less at the distance of 1,000,000 
miles ; ergo, God cannot give it such a power : you cannot 
conceive how matter should feel or move itself, or affect 
any material being, or be moved by it ; ergo, God cannot 
give it such powers : which is in effect to deny gravity, 
and the revolution of the planets about the sun ; to make 
brutes mere machines, without sense or spontaneous 
motion; and to allow man neither sense nor voluntary 
motion. 

" Let us apply this rule one degree further. You can- 
not conceive how an extended solid substance should 
think, therefore God cannot make it think : can you con- 
ceive how your own soul or any substance thinks ? You 
find, indeed, that you do think, and so do I ; but I want 
to be told how the action of thinking is performed : this, 
I confess, is beyond my conception ; and I would be glad 
any one who conceives it would explain it to me. 

" God, I find, has given me this faculty ; and since I 
cannot but be convinced of His power in this instance, 
which, though I every moment experience in myself, yet I 
cannot conceive the manner of, what would it be less 
than an insolent absurdity to deny His power in other 
like cases, only for this reason, because I cannot conceive 
the manner how ? . . . 

" That Omnipotency cannot make a substance to be 
solid and not solid at the same time, I think with due 
reverence [diffidence ? ^] we may say ; but that a solid 
substance may not have qualities, perfections, and powers, 

^ The qualities named are only be destitute of meaning in an absolute 
known in a relative sense, and there- sense, 
fore the apparent contradiction may 



A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 123 

which have no natural or visibly necessary connection 
with solidity and extension, is too much for us (who are 
but of yesterday, and know nothing) to be positive in. 

"If God cannot join things together by connections 
inconceivable to us, we must deny even the consistency 
and being of matter itself; since every particle of it 
having some bulk, has its parts connected by ways 
inconceivable to us. So that all the difficulties that are 
raised against the thinking of matter, from our ignorance 
or narrow conceptions, stand not at all in the way of the 
power of God, if He pleases to ordain it so ; nor prove 
anything against His having actually endowed some 
parcels of matter, so disposed as He thinks fit, with a 
faculty of thinking, till it can be shown that it contains a 
contradiction to suppose it. 

"Though to me sensation be comprehended under 
thinking in general, in the foregoing discourse I have 
spoke of sense in brutes as distinct from thinking; 
because your lordship, as I remember, speaks of sense in 
brutes. But here I take liberty to observe, that if your 
lordship allows brutes to have sensation, it will follow, 
either that God can and doth give to some parcels of 
matter a power of perception and thinking, or that all 
animals have immaterial, and consequently, according to 
your lordship, immortal souls, as well as men ; and to say 
that fleas and mites, &c., have immortal souls as well as 
men, will possibly be looked on as going a great way to 
serve an hypothesis. . . . 

" It is true, I say, ' That bodies operate by impulse, and 
nothing else,' and so I thought when I writ it, and can 
yet conceive no other way of their operation. But I am 
since convinced, by the judicious Mr. Newton's incompar- 
able book, that it is too bold a presumption to limit God's 
power in this point by my narrow conceptions. The 
gravitation of matter towards matter, by way unconceiv- 
able to me, is not only a demonstration that God can, if 
He pleases, put into bodies powers and ways of operation 



124 A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. * 

above wliat can be derived from our idea of body, or can 
be explained by what we know of matter, but also an 
unquestionable and everywhere visible instance that He 
has done so. And therefore, in the next edition of my 
book, I will take care to have that passage rectified. . . . 

"As to self-consciousness, your lordship asks, 'What 
is there like self-consciousness in matter?' Nothing at 
all in matter as matter. But that God cannot bestow on 
some parcels of matter a power of thinking, and with it 
self-consciousness, will never be proved by asking how 
is it possible to apprehend that mere body should 
perceive that it doth perceive ? The weakness of our 
apprehension I grant in the case : I confess as much as 
you please, that we cannot conceive how an unsolid 
created substance thinks ; but this weakness of our 
apprehension reaches not the power of God, whose 
weakness is stronger than anything in man." 

Lastly, Locke turns upon his opponent the power of the 
odium theologicum. 

" Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account 
what it is that should keep the parts of a material soul 
together after it is separated from the body, yet it will 
be always as easy to give an account of it as to give an 
account what it is that shall keep together a material and 
immaterial substance. And yet the difi&culty that there 
is to give an account of that,' I hope, does not, with your 
lordship, weaken the credibility of the inseparable union 
of soul and body to eternity ; and I persuade myself that 
the men of sense, to whom your lordship appeals in this 
case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point 
much weakened by that difficulty. . . . But you will 
say, you speak only of the soul ; and your words are, that 
it is no easy matter to give an account how the soul 
should be capable of immortality unless it be a material 
substance. I grant it, but crave leave to say, that thexe is 
not any one of these difficulties that are or can be raised 
about the manner how a material soul can be immortal, 



A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 125 

whidi do not as well reach the immortality of the 
body. . . . 

" But your lordship, as I guess from your following 
words, would argue that a material substance cannot be a 
free agent ; whereby I suppose you only mean that you 
cannot see or conceive how a solid substance should begin, 
stop, or change its own motion. To which give me leave 
to answer, that when you can make it conceivable how 
any created, finite, dependent substance can move itself, 
I suppose you will find it no harder for God to bestow 
this power on a solid than an unsolid created substance. 
. . . But though you cannot see how any created 
substance, solid or not solid, can be a free agent (pardon 
me, my lord, if I put in both, till your lordship please to 
explain it of either, and show the manner how either of 
them can of itself move itself or anything else), yet I do 
not think you will so far deny men to be free agents, 
from the difficulty there is to see how they are free agents, 
as to doubt whether there be foundation enough for the 
day of judgment." 

Let us now, for the sake of contrast, turn to some 
passages which occur in the other train of reasoning. 

" If we suppose only matter and motion first or eternal, 
thought can never begin to be. For it is impossible to 
conceive that matter, either with or without motion, 
could have originally in and from itself sense, percep- 
tion, and knowledge ; as is evident from hence, that then 
sense, perception, and knowledge must be a property eter- 
nally inseparable from matter and every particle of it." 
There is a double fallacy here. In the first place, con- 
ceivability is made the unconditional test of possibility ; 
and, in the next place, it is asserted that unless every 
particle of matter can think, no collocation of such 
particles can possibly do so. This latter fallacy is further 
insisted upon thus : — " If they will not allow matter as 
matter, that is, every particle of matter, to be as well 
cogitative as extended, they will have as hard a task to 



126 A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 

make out to their own reasons a cogitative being out 
of incogitative particles, as an extended being out of 
unextended parts, if I may so speak. . . . Every par- 
ticle of matter, as matter, is capable of all the same 
figures and motions of any other ; and I challenge any one 
in his thoughts to add anything else to one above another." 
Now, as we have seen, Locke himself has shown in his other 
trains of argument that this challenge is thoroughly futile 
as a refutation of possibilities ; but the point to which I now 
wish to draw attention is this — It does not follow because 
certain and highly complex collocations of material par- 
ticles may be supposed capable of thinking, that therefore 
every particle of matter must be regarded as having this 
attribute. We have innumerable analogies in nature of a 
certain collocation of matter and force producing certain 
results which another somewhat similar collocation could 
not produce : in such cases we do not assume that all the 
resulting attributes of the one collocation must be presented 
also by the other — still less that these resulting attributes 
must belong to the primary qualities of matter and force. 
Hence it is not fair to assume that thought must either 
be inherent in every particle of matter, or else not pro- 
ducible by any possible collocation of such particles, 
unless it has previously been shown that so to produce it 
by any possible collocation is in the nature of things 
impossible. But no one could refute this fallacy better 
than Locke himself has done in some of the passages 
already quoted from his other train of reasoning. 

But to continue the quotation : — " If, therefore, it be 
evident that something necessarily must exist from 
eternity, it is also as evident that that something must 
necessarily be a cogitative being ; for it is as impossible 
[inconcewaUe] that incogitative matter should produce a 
cogitative being, as that nothing, or the negation of all 
being, should produce a positive being or matter." Again, 
— "For unthinking particles of matter, however put to- 
gether, can have [can he taught to have] nothing thereby 



A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 127 

added to them, but a new relation of position, wMcli it 
is impossible \inconceivable\ should give thought and know- 
ledge to them." 

It is unnecessary to multiply these quotations, for, in 
effect, they would all be merely repetitions of one another. 
It is enoucrh to have seen that this able author undertakes 
to demonstrate the existence of a God, and that his whole 
demonstration resolves itself into the unwarrantable infer- 
ence, that as we are unable to conceive how thought can be 
a property of matter, therefore a property of matter thought 
cannot be. That such an erroneous inference should occur 
in any writings of so old a date as those of Locke is not in 
itself surprising. What is surprising is the fact, that in 
the same writings, and in the course of the same discussion, 
the fallacy of this very inference is repeatedly pointed out 
and insisted upon in a great variety of ways ; and it has 
been chiefly for the sake of showing the pernicious in- 
fluence which preformed opinion may exert — viz., even to 
blinding the eyes of one of the most clear-sighted and 
thoughtful men that ever lived to a glaring contradiction 
repeated over and over again in the course of a few pages, 
— it has been chiefly for this reason that I have extended 
this Appendix to so great a length. I shall now conclude 
it by quoting some sentences which occur on the very next 
page after that from which the last quoted sentences were 
taken. Our author here again returns to his defence of 
the omnipotency of God ; and as he now again thus per- 
sonifies the sum total of possibility, his mind abruptly re- 
verts to all its other class of associations. In this case the 
transition is particularly interesting, not only on account 
of its suddenness, but also because the correlations con- 
templated happen to be exactly the same in the two cases 
— ^viz., matter as the cause of mind, and mind as the 
cause of matter. Eemember that on the last page this 
great philosopher supposed he had demonstrated the ab- 
stract impossibility of matter being the cause of mind on 
the ground of a causal connection being inconceivable, let 



128 A CRITICAL EXPOSITION. 

US now observe what lie says upon this page regarding the 
abstract possibility of mind being the cause of matter. 
" ISTay, possibly, if we would emancipate ourselves from 
vulgar notions, and raise our thoughts as far as they would 
reach to a closer contemplation of things, we might be 
able to aim at some dim and seeming conception how 
matter might at first be made and begin to exist by the 
power of that eternal first being. . . . But you will say, Is 
it not impossible to admit of the making anything out 
of nothing, since we cannot possibly conceive it ? I 
answer — No; because it is not reasonable to deny the 
power of an infinite being [this phrase, in the absence of 
hypothesis, i.e., in Locke's other train of reasoning, is of 
course equivalent to the sum-total of possibility] because 
we cannot comprehend its operations. We do not deny 
other effects upon this ground, because we cannot possibly 
conceive the manner of their production. We cannot 
conceive how anything but impulse of body can move 
body ; and yet that is not a reason sufficient to make us 
deny it possible, against the constant experience we have 
of it in ourselves, in all our voluntary motions, which 
are produced in us only by the free action or thought of 
our minds, and are not, nor can be, the effects of the im- 
pulse or determination of the blind matter in or upon our 
own bodies; for then it could not be in our power or 
choice to alter it. For example, my right hand writes, 
whilst my left hand is still : what causes rest in one and 
motion in the other ? Nothing but my will, a thought in 
my mind; my thought only changing, the right hand 
rests, and the left hands moves. This is matter of fact, 
which cannot be denied : explain this and make it in- 
telligible, and then the next step will be to understand 
creation." i 

^ All the" quotations in this Appen- that on "The extent of human know- 

dix have been taken from the chapter ledge," together with the appended 

on " Our knowledge of the existence letter to the Bishop of Worcester, 
of a God," and from the early part of 



SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. 



I. 

COSMIC THEISM.i 

Me. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable is a 
doctrine of so miicli speculative importance, that it behoves 
all students of philosophy to have clear views respecting 
its character and implications. Mr. Spencer has himself 
so fully explained the character of this doctrine, that no 
attentive reader can fail to understand it ; but concerning 
those of its implications which may be termed theological 
— as distinguished from religious — Mr. Spencer is silent. 
Within the last two or three years, however, there has 
appeared a valuable work by an able exponent of the new 
philosophy; and in this work the writer, adopting his 
master's teaching of the Unknowable, proceeds to develop 
it into a definite system of what may be termed scientific 
theology. And not only so, but he assures the world 
that this system of scientific theology is the highest, the 
purest, and the most ennobling form of religion that man- 
kind has ever been privileged to know in the past, or, 
from the nature of the case, can ever be destined to know 
in the future. It is a system, we are told, wherein the 
most fundamental truths of Theism are taught as necessary 
deductions from the highest truths of Science ; it is a system 
wherein no single doctrine appeals for its acceptance to any 

1 A criticism of Mr, John Fiske's pounded in Ms work on "Cosmic 
proposed system of theology as ex- Philosophy " (Macmillan & Co., 1874). 

I 



I30 COSMIC THEISM. 

principle of blind or credulous faith, but wherein every 
doctrine can be fully justified by the searching light of 
reason ; it is a system wherein the noblest of our aspira- 
tions and the most sublime of our emotions are able to 
find an object far more worthy and much more glorious 
than has ever been supplied to them by any of the older 
forms of Theism ; and it is a system, therefore, in which, 
with a greatly enlarged and intensified meaning, we may 
worship God, and all that is within us bless His holy 
name. Assuredly a proclamation such as this, emanating 
from the most authoritative expounders of modern thought, 
as the highest and the greatest result to which a rigorous 
philosophic synthesis has led, is a proclamation which 
cannot fail to arrest our most serious attention. Nay, 
may it not do more than this ? May it not appeal to 
hearts which long have ceased to worship ? May it not 
once more revive a hope — long banished, perhaps, but still 
the dearest which our poor natures have experienced — 
that somewhere, sometime, or in some way, it may yet be 
possible to feel that God is not far from any one of us ? 
For to those who have known the anguish of a shattered 
faith, it will not seem so childish that our hearts should 
beat the quicker when we once more hear a voice announc- 
ing to a world of superstitious idolaters — " Whom ye 
ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you." But if, when 
we have Kstened to the glad tidings of the new gospel, we 
find that the preacher, though apparently in earnest, is not 
worthy to be heard again on this matter ; and if, as we 
turn away, our eyes grow dim with the memory of a 
vanished dream, surely we may feel that the preacher 
is deserving of our blame for obtruding thus upon the ' 
most sacred of our sorrows. 

Mr. John Fiske is, as is well known, an author who 
unites in himself the qualities of a well-read student of 
philosophy, a clear and accurate thinker, a thorough 
master of the principles which in his recent work he 
undertakes to explain and to extend, and a writer gifted 



COSMIC THEISM. 131 

in a remarkable degree with the power of lucid exposi- 
tion. Such being the intellectual calibre of the man who 
elaborates this new system of scientific theology, I confess 
that, on first seeing his work, I experienced a faint hope 
that, in the higher departments of the Philosophy of 
Evolution as conceived by Mr. Spencer and elaborated 
by his disciple, there might be found some rational justi- 
fication for an attenuated form of Theism. But on examina- 
tion I find that the bread which these fathers have offered 
us turns out to be a stone ; and thinking that it is desirable 
to warn other of the children — whether of the family 
Philosophical or Theological — against swallowing on trust 
a morsel so injurious, I shall endeavour to point out what 
I conceive to be the true nature of " Cosmic Theism." 

Starting from the doctrine of the Eelativity of Know- 
ledge, Mr. Fiske, following Mr. Spencer, proceeds to show 
how the doctrine implies that there must be a mode of 
Being to which human knowledge is non-relative. Or, in 
other words, he shows that the postulation of phenomena 
necessitates the further postulation of noumena of which 
phenomena are the manifestations. Now what may we 
affirm of noumena without departing from a scientific or 
objective mode of philosophising? We may affirm at 
least this much of noumena, that they constitute a mode 
of existence which need not necessarily vanish were our 
consciousness to perish ; and, therefore, that they now stand 
out of necessary relation to our consciousness. Or, in 
other words, so far as human consciousness is concerned, 
noumena must be regarded as absolute. " But now, what 
do we mean by this affirmation of absolute reality inde- 
pendent of the conditions of the process of knowing ? 
Do we mean to . . . affirm, in language savouring 
strongly of scholasticism, that beneath the phenomena 
which we call subjective there is an occult substratum 
Mind, and beneath the phenomena which we call objective 
there is an occult substratum Matter ? Our conclusion 
cannot be stated in any such form. ... Our conclusion is 



132 COSMIC THEISM. 

simply this, tliat no theory of phenomena, external or 
internal, can be framed without postulating an Absolute 
Existence of which phenomena are the manifestations. 
And now let us carefully note what follows. We cannot 
identify this Absolute Existence with Mind, since what 
we know as Mind is a series of phenomenal manifesta- 
tions. . . . Nor can we identify this Absolute Existence 
with Matter, since what we know as Matter is a series of 
phenomenal manifestations. . . . Absolute Existence, 
therefore, — the Eeality which persists independently of us, 
and of which Mind and Matter are the phenomenal mani- 
festations, — cannot be identified either with Mind or with 
Matter. Thus is Materialism included in the same con- 
demnation with Idealism. . . . See then how far we have 
travelled from the scholastic theory of occult substrata 
underlying each group of phenomena. These substrata 
were but the ghosts of the phenomena themselves ; behind 
the tree or the mountain a sort of phantom tree or moun- 
tain, which persists after the body of perception has gone 
away with the departure of the percipient mind. Clearly 
this is no scientific interpretation of the facts, but is 
rather a specimen of naive barbaric thought surviving 
in metaphysics. The tree or mountain being groups of 
phenomena, what we assert as persisting independently 
of the percipient mind is a something which we are 
unable to condition either as tree or as mountain. 

" And now we come down to the very bottom of the 
problem. Since we do postulate Absolute Existence, and 
do not postulate a particular occult substance underlying 
each group of phenomena, are we to be understood as 
implying that there is a single Being of which all pheno- 
mena, internal and external to consciousness, are mani- 
festations ? Such must seem to be the inevitable con- 
clusion, since we are able to carry on thinking at all only 
under the relations of Difference and No-difference. . . . 
It may seem that, since we cannot attribute to the 
Absolute Eeality any relations of Difference, we must 



COSMIC THEISM. 133 

positively ascribe to it No-difference. Or, what is the 
same thing, in refusing to predicate multiplicity of it, do 
we not virtually predicate of it unity ? We do, simply 
"because we cannot think without so doing." ^ 

A single Absolute Eeality being thus posited, our 
author proceeds, towards the close of his work, to argue 
that as this Eeality cannot be conceived as limited either 
in space or time, it constitutes a Being which corresponds 
with our essential conception of Deity. True it is devoid 
of certain accessory attributes, such as personality, intelli- 
gence, and volition ; but for this very reason, it is insisted, 
the theistic ideal as thus presented is a purer, and there- 
fore a better, ideal than has ever been presented before. 
Nay, it is the highest possible form of this ideal, as the 
following considerations will show. In what has consisted 
that continuous purification of Theism which the history 
of thought shows to have been effected, from the grossest 
form of belief in supernatural agency as exhibited in 
Fetichism, through its more refined form as exhibited in 
Polytheism, to its still more refined form as exhibited in 
]\Ionotheism ? In nothing but in a continuous process of 
what Mr. Fiske calls " deanthropomorphisation." Conse- 
quently, must we not conclude that when we carry this pro- 
cess yet one step further, and divest our conception of Deity 
of all the yet lingering remnants of anthropomorphism 
which occur in the current conceptions of Deity, we are but 
still further purifying that conception? Assuredly, the 
attributes of personality, intelligence, and so forth, are only 
known as attributes of Humanity, and therefore to ascribe 
them to Deity is but to foster, in a more refined form, the 
anthropomorphic teachings of previous religions. But if 
we carefully refuse to limit Deity by the ascription of any 
human attributes whatever, and if the only attributes 
which we do ascribe are such as on grounds of pure reason 
alone we are compelled to ascribe, must we not conclude 
that the form of Theism which results is the purest and 
the most refined form in which it is possible for Theism to 

^ Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 87-89, 



134 COSMIC THEISM. 

exist ? " From the anthropomorphic point of view it will 
quite naturally be urged in objection, that this apparently- 
desirable result is reached through the degradation of 
Deity from an ' intelligent personality ' to a ' blind force/ 
and is therefore in reality an undesirable and perhaps 
quasi- atheistic result." i But the question which really 
presents itself is, "theologically phrased, whether the 
creature is to be taken as a measure of the Creator. 
Scientifically phrased, the question is whether the highest 
form of Being as yet suggested to one petty race of 
creatures by its ephemeral experience of what is going on 
in one tiny corner of the universe, is necessarily to be 
taken as the equivalent of that absolutely highest form of 
Being in which all the possibilities of existence are alike 
comprehended." 2 Therefore, in conclusion, " whether or 
not it is true that, within the bounds of the phenomenal 
universe the highest type of existence is that which we 
know as humanity, the conclusion is in every way forced 
upon us that, quite independently of limiting conditions 
in space or time, there is a form of Being which can 
neither be assimilated to humanity nor to any lower type 
of existence. We have no alternative, therefore, but to 
regard it as higher than humanity, even ' as the heavens 
are higher than the earth,' and except for the intellectual 
arrogance which the arguments of theologians show lurk- 
ing beneath their expressions of humility, there is no 
reason why this admission should not be made unre- 
servedly, without the anthropomorphic qualifications by 
which its effect is commonly nullified. The time is surely 
coming when the slowness of men in accepting such a con- 
clusion will be marvelled at, and when the very inadequacy 
of human language to express Divinity will be regarded as 
a reason for a deeper faith and more solemn adoration." 3 

I have now sufficiently detailed the leading principles 
of Cosmic Theism to render a clear and just conception of 
those fundamental parts of the system which I am about 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 429, 430. 
2 Ibid., p. 441. 3 Ibid., pp. 450, 451. 



COSMIC THEISM. 135 

to criticise ; but it is needless to say that, for all minor 
details of this system, I must refer those who may not 
already have perused them to Mr. Fiske's somewhat 
elaborate essays. In now beginning my criticisms, it may 
be well to state at the outset, that they are to be restricted 
to the philosophical aspect of the subject. With matters 
of sentiment I do not intend to deal, — partly because to 
do so would be unduly to extend this essay, and partly 
also because I believe that, so far as the acceptance or the 
rejection of Cosmic Theism is to be determined by senti- 
ment, much, if not all, will depend on individual habits 
of thought. For whether or not Cosmic Theism is to be 
regarded as a religion adapted to the needs of any indi- 
vidual man, will depend on what these needs are felt to 
be by that man himself : we cannot assert magisterially 
that this religion must be adapted to his needs because 
we have found it to be adapted to our own. And if it is 
retorted that, human nature being everywhere the same, a 
form of reKgion that is adapted to one man must on this 
account be adapted to another, I reply that it is not so. 
For if a man who is what Mr. Fiske calls an " Anthropo- 
morphic Theist" finds from experience that his system of 
religion — say Christianity — creates and sustains a class of 
emotions and general habits of thought which he feels to be 
the highest and the best of which he is capable, it is useless 
for a " Cosmic Theist " to offer such a man another system 
of religion, in which the conditions essential to the exist- 
ence of these particular emotions and habits of thought 
are manifestly absent. For such a man cannot but feel 
that the proffered substitution would be tantamount, if 
accepted, to an utter destruction of all that he regards 
as essentially religious. He will tell us that he finds it 
perfectly easy to understand and to appreciate those feel- 
ings of vague awe and "worship of the silent kind" 
which the Cosmic Theist declares to be fostered by Cosmic 
Theism ; but he will also tell us that those feelings, which 
he has experienced with equal vividness under his own 



136 COSMIC THEISM. 

system of Anthropomorpliic Theism, are to him but as 
non-religious dross compared with the unspeakable 
felicity of holding definite commune with the Almighty 
and Most Merciful, or of rendering worship that is a glad 
hosanna — a fearless shout of joy. On the other hand, I 
believe that it is possible for philosophic habits of thought 
so to discipline the mind that the feelings of vague awe 
and silent worship in the presence of an appalKng Mystery 
become more deep and steady than a theist proper can 
well believe. It is therefore impossible that either party 
can fully appreciate those sentiments of the other which 
they have never fully experienced themselves ; for even 
in those cases where an anthropomorphic theist has been 
compelled to abandon his creed, as the change must take 
place in mature life, his tone of mind has been determined 
before it does take place; and therefore in sentiment, 
though not in faith, he is more or less of a theist for the 
rest of his life : the only effect of the change is to create a 
troubled interference between his desires and his beliefs. 

However, I do not intend to develop this branch of 
the subject further than thus to point out, in a general 
way, that religion-mongers as a class are apt to show too 
little regard for the sentiments, as distingjuished from the 
beliefs, of those to whom they offer their wares. But 
although I do not intend to constitute myself a champion 
of theology by pointing out the defects of Cosmic Theism 
in the aspect which it presents to current modes of thought, 
there is one such defect which I must here dwell upon, 
because we shall afterwards have occasion to refer to it. 
A theologian may very naturally make this objection to 
Cosmic Theism as presented by Mr. Fiske — viz., that the 
argument on which this philosopher throughout relies as a 
self-evident demonstration that the new system of Theism 
is a further and a final improvement on all the previous 
systems of Theism, is a fallacious argument. As we have 
already seen, this argument is, that as the progress in the 
purification of Theism has throughout consisted in a process 



COSMIC THEISM. 137 

of " deanthropomorphisation," therefore the terminal phase 
in this process, which Cosmic Theism introduces, must be 
still in the direction of that progress. But to this argu- 
ment a theologian may not unreasonably object, that this 
terminal phase differs from all the previous phases in one 
all-important feature — viz., in effecting a total abolition 
of the anthropomorphic element. Before, therefore, it can 
be shown that this terminal phase is a further development 
of Theism,it must be shown that Theism still remains Theism 
after this hitherto characteristic element has been removed. 
If it is true, as Mr. Fiske very properly insists, that all 
the various forms of belief in God have thus far had this 
as a common factor, that they ascribed to God the attributes 
of Man ; it becomes a question whether we may properly 
abstract this hitherto invariable factor of a belief, and still 
call that belief by the same name. Or, to put the matter 
in another light, as cosmists maintain that Theism, in all 
the phases of its development, has been the product of a 
probably erroneous theory of personal agency in nature, 
when this theory is expressly discarded — as it is by the 
doctrine of the Unknowable — is it philosophically legiti- 
mate for cosmists to render their theory of things in terms 
which belong to the totally different theory which they 
discard ? No doubt it is true that the progressive refine- 
ment of Theism has throughout consisted in a progressive 
discarding of anthropomorphic qualities ; but this fact does 
not touch the consideration that, when we proceed to strip 
off the last remnants of these qualities, we are committing 
an act which differs toto codo from all the previous acts 
which are cited as precedents ; for by this terminal act we 
are not, as heretofore, refining the theory of Theism — we 
are completely transforming it by removing an element 
which, both genetically and historically, would seem to 
constitute the very essence of Theism. 

Or the case may be presented in yet another light. The 
only use of terms, whether in daily talk or in philosophical 
disquisition, is that of designating certain things or attri- 



138 COSMIC THEISM. 

butes to which by general custom we agree to affix them ; 
so that if any one applies a term to some thing or attribute 
which general custom does not warrant him in so applying, 
he is merely laying himself open to the charge of abusing 
that term. Now apply these elementary principles to the 
case before us. We have but to think of the disgust with 
which the vast majority of living persons would regard 
the sense in which Mr. Fiske uses the term " Theism/' to 
perceive how intimate is the association of that term with 
the idea of a Personal God. Such persons will feel strongly 
that, by this final act of purification, Mr. Fiske has simply 
purified the Deity altogether out of existence. And I 
scarcely think it is here competent to reply that all 
previous acts of purification were at first similarly regarded 
as destructive, because it is evident that none of these 
previous acts affected, as this one does, the central core of 
Theism. And, lastly, if it should be still further objected, 
that by declaring the theory of Personal Agency the cen- 
tral core of Theism, I am begging the question as to the 
appropriateness of Mr. Fiske's use of the word " Theism," — 
seeing he appears to regard the essential meaning of this 
word to be that of a postulation of merely Causal Agency, 
— I answer. More of this anon ; but meanwhile let it be 
observed that any charge of question-begging lies rather 
at the door of Mr. Fiske, in that he assumes, without any 
expressed justification, that the essence of Theism does 
consist in such a postulation and in nothing more. And 
as he unquestionably has against him the present world 
of theists no less than the history of Theism in the past, 
I do not see how he is to meet this charge except by con- 
fessing to an abuse of the term in question. 

I will now proceed to examine the structure of Cosmic 
Theism. We are all, I suppose, at one in allowing that 
there are only three " verbally intelligible " theories of the 
universe, — viz., that it is self-existent, or that it is self- 
created, or that it has been created by some other and ex- 
ternal Being. It is usual to call the first of these theories 



COSMIC THEISM. 139 

Atheism, the second Pantheism, and the third Theism. 
Now as there are here three distinct nameable theories, it 
is necessary, if the term " Cosmic Theism " is to be justified 
as an appropriate term, that the particular theory which it 
designates should be shown to be in its essence theistic — 
i.e., that the theory should present those distinguishing 
features in virtue of which Theism differs from Atheism 
on the one hand, and from Pantheism on the other. Now 
what are these features ? The postulate of an Eternal 
Self-existing Something is common to Theism and to 
Atheism. Here Atheism ends. Theism, however, is 
generally said to assume Personality, Intelligence, and 
Creative Power as attributes of the single self-existing 
substance. Lastly, Pantheism assumes the Something 
now existing to have been self-created. To which, then, 
of these distinct theories is Cosmic Theism most nearly 
allied ? For the purpose of answering this question, I 
shall render that theory in terms of a formula which Mr. 
Piske presents as a full and complete statement of the 
theory : — " There exists a POWEE, to tvhich no limit in 
space or time is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as 
presented in consciousness, are manifestations, hut luhich we 
can only know through these manifestations." But although 
the word " Power " is here so strongly emphasised, we are 
elsewhere told that it is not to be regarded as havincr more 
than a strictly relative or symbolic meaning ; so that, in 
point of fact, some more neutral word, such as " Some- 
thing," " Being," or " Substance," ought in strictness to be 
here substituted for the word " Power." Well, if this is 
done, we have the postulation of a Being which is self- 
existing, infinite, and eternal — relatively, at all events, 
to our powers of conception. Thus far, therefore, it would 
seem that we are still on the common standing-ground of 
Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism; for as it is not, so far as 
I can see, incumbent on Pantheism to affirm that " thought 
is a measure of things," the apparent or relative eternity 
which the Primal Something must be supposed to present 



I40 ■ COSMIC THEISM. 

may not be actual or absolute eternity. Nevertheless, as 
Mr. Fiske, by predicating Divinity of the Primal Some- 
thing, implicitly attributes to it the quality of an eternal 
self-existence, I infer that Cosmic Theism may be con- 
cluded at this point to part company with Pantheism. 
There remain, then. Theism and Atheism. 

N"ow undoubtedly, at first sight. Cosmic Theism appears 
to differ from Atheism in one all-important particular. 
For we have seen that, by means of a subtle though 
perfectly logical argument, Cosmic Philosophy has evolved 
this conclusion — that all phenomena as presented in con- 
sciousness are manifestations of a not improbable Single 
Self-existing Power, of whose existence these manifestaT 
tions alone can make us cognisant. From which it 
apparently follows, that this hypothetical Power must be 
regarded as existing out of necessary relation to the 
phenomenal universe ; that it is, therefore, beyond question 
" Absolute Being ; " and that, as such, we are entitled to 
call it Deity. But in the train of reasoning of which this 
is a very condensed epitome, it is evident that the legiti- 
macy of denominating this Absolute Being Deity, must 
depend on the exact meaning which we attach to the 
word "Absolute" — and this, be it observed, quite apart 
from the question, before touched upon, as to whether 
Personality and Intelligence are not to be considered as 
attributes essential to Deity. In what sense, then, is the 
word " Absolute " used ? It is used in this sense. As 
from the relativity of knowledge we cannot know things 
in themselves, but only symbolical representations of such 
things, therefore things in themselves are absolute to 
consciousness : but analysis shows that we cannot con- 
ceivably predicate Difference among things in themselves, 
so that we are at liberty, with due diffidence, to predicate 
of them No-difference : hence the noumena of the school- 
men admit of being collected into a summum genus of 
noumenal existence; and since, before their colligation 
noumena were severally absolute, after their colligation 



COSMIC THEISM. 141 

they become collectively absolute: therefore it is legiti- 
mate to designate this sum-total of noumenal existence, 
" Absolute Being." N"ow there is clearly no exception to 
be taken to the formal accuracy of this reasoning ; the 
only question is as to whether the "Absolute Being" 
which it evolves is absolute in the sense required by 
Theism. I confess that to me this Being appears to be 
absolute in a widely different sense from that in which 
Deity must be regarded as absolute. For this Being is 
thus seen to be absolute in no other sense than as holding 
— to quote from Mr. Fiske — " existence independent of the 
conditions of the process of knowing." In other words, 
it is absolute only as standing out of necessary relation to 
Jiuman consciousness. But Theism requires, as an essential 
feature, that Deity should be absolute as standing out of 
necessary relation to all else. Before, therefore, the 
Absolute Being of Cosmism can be shown, by the 
reasoning adopted, to deserve, even in part, the appella- 
tion of Deity, it must be shown that there is no other 
mode of Being in existence save our own subjective con- 
sciousness and the Absolute Eeality which becomes 
objective to it through the world of phenomena. But 
any attempt to establish this position would involve a 
disregard of the doctrine that knowledge is relative ; and 
to do this, it is needless to say, would be to destroy the 
basis of the argument whereby the Absolute Being of 
Cosmism was posited. 

Or, to state this part of the criticism in other words, as 
the first step in justifying the predication of Deity, it 
must be shown that the Being of which the predication is 
made is absolute, and this not merely as independent of 
human consciousness, but as independent of the whole 
noumenal universe — Deity itself alone excepted. That is, 
the Being of which Deity is predicated must be Uncondi- 
tioned. Hence it is incumbent on Cosmic Theism to 
prove, either that the Causal Agent which it denominates 
Deity is itself the whole noumenal universe, or that it 



142 COSMIC THEISM, 

created the rest of a noumenal universe; else there is 
nothing to show that this Causal Agent was not itself 
created — seeing that, even if we assume the existence of a 
God, there is nothing to indicate that the Causal Agent of 
Cosmism is that God. 

It would appear therefore from this, that whatever else 
the Cosmist's theory of things may be, it certainly is not 
Theism ; and I think that closer inspection will tend to 
confirm this judgment. To this then let us proceed. 

Mr. Fiske is very hard on the atheists, and so will 
probably repudiate with scorn any insinuations to the 
effect that his theory of things is "quasi-atheistic." 
Nevertheless, it seems to me that he is very unjust to the 
atheists, in that while he spares no pains to " purify " and 
" refine " the theory of the theists, so as at last to leave 
nothing but what he regards as the distilled essence of 
Theism behind; he habitually leaves the theory of the 
atheists as he finds it, without making any attempt either 
to "purify" it by removing its weak and unnecessary 
ingredients, or to " refine " it by adding such sublimated 
ingredients as modern speculation has supplied. Thus, 
while he despises the atheists of the eighteenth century 
for their irrationality in believing in the self-existence of 
a 'phenomenal universe, and reviles them for their irreligion 
in denying that "the religious sentiment needed satis- 
faction ;'' he does not wait to inquire whether, in its 
essential substance, the theory of these men is not the one 
that has proved itself best able to withstand the grinding 
action of more recent thought. But let us in fairness 
ask. What was the essential substance of that theory ? 
Apparently it was the bare statement of the unthinkable 
fact that Something Is. It therefore seems to me useless 
in Mr. Fiske to lay so much stress on the fact that this 
Something was originally identified by atheists with the 
phenomenal universe. It seems useless to do this, because 
such identification is clearly no part of the essence of 
Atheism, which, as just stated, I take to consist in the single 



COSMIC THEISM. 143 

dogma of self-existence as itself sujB&cient to constitute a 
theory of things. And, if so, it is a matter of scarcely 
any moment, as regards that theory, whether we are 
immediately cognisant of that which is self- existent, or 
only become so through the world of phenomena — the 
vital point of the theory being, that Self-existence, 
wherever 'posited, is itself the only admissible explanation 
of phenomena. Or, in other words, it does not seem that 
there is anything in the atheistic theory, as such, which 
is incompatible with the doctrine of the Eelativity of 
Knowledge ; so that whatever cogency there may be in 
the train of reasoning whereby a single Causal Agent is 
deduced from that doctrine, it would seem that an atheist 
has as much right to the benefit of this reasoning as a 
theist ; and there is thus no more apparent reason why 
this single Causal Agent should be appropriated as the 
God of Theism, than that it should be appropriated as 
the Self-existing X of Atheism. Indeed, there seems to 
be less reason. For an atheist of to-day may very 
properly argue : — ' So far from beholding anything divine 
in this Single Being absolute to human consciousness, it 
is just precisely the form of Being which my theory 
postulates as the Self-existing All. In order to constitute 
such a Being God, it must be shown, as we have already 
seen, to be something more than a merely Causal Agent 
which is absolute in the grotesquely restricted sense of 
being independent of ' one petty race of creatures with an 
ephemeral experience of what is going on in one tiny 
corner of the universe ; ' it must be shown to be something 
more than absolute even in the wholly unrestricted sense 
of being Unconditioned; it must be shown to possess 
such other attributes as are distinctive of Deity. For I 
maintain that even Unconditioned Being, merely as such, 
would only then have a right to the name of God when 
it has been shown that the theory of Theism has a right 
to monopolise the doctrine of Eelativity.' 

In thus endeavouring to " purify " the theory of Atheism, 



144 COSMIC THEISM, 

by divesting it of all superfluous accessories, and laying 
bare what I conceive to be its essential substance ; it may 
be well to state that, even apart from their irreligious 
character, I have no sympathy with the atheists of the 
past century. I mean, that these men do not seem to me 
to deserve any credit for advanced powers of speculation 
merely because they adopted a theory of things which in 
its essential features now promises to be the most endur- 
ing. For it is evident that the strength of this theory 
now lies in its simplicity, — in its undertaking to explain, so 
far as explanation is possible, the sum-total of phenomena 
by the single postulate of self-existence. But it seems to 
me that in the last century there were no sufficient data 
for rendering such a theory of things a rational theory ; 
for so long as the quality of self-existence was supposed 
to reside in phenomena themselves, the very simplicity of 
the theory, as expressed in words, must have seemed to 
render it inapplicable as a reasonable theory of things. 
The astounding variety, complexity, and harmony which 
are everywhere so conspicuous in the world of phenomena 
must have seemed to necessitate as an explanation 
some one integrating cause ; and it is impossible that in 
the eighteenth century any such integrating cause can 
have been conceivable other than Intelligence. Therefore 
I think, with Mr. Fiske, that the atheists of the eighteenth 
century were irrational in applying their single postulate 
of self-existence as alone a sufficient explanation of things. 
But of course the aspect of the case is now completely 
changed, when we regard it in all the flood of light which 
has been shed on it by recent science, physical and 
speculative. For the demonstration of the fact that 
energy is indestructible, coupled with the corollary that 
every so-called natural law is a physically necessary 
consequence of that fact, clearly supply us with a 
completely novel datum as the ultimate source of experi- 
ence — and a datum, moreover, which is as different as can 
well be imagined from the ever-changing, ever-fleeting, 



COSMIC THEISM. 145 

world of phenomena. We have, therefore, but to apply 
the postulate of self-existence to this single ultimate 
datum, and we have a theory of things as rational as the 
Atheism of the last century was irrational. ^Nevertheless, 
that this theory is more akin to the Atheism of the last 
century than to any other theory of that time, is, I think, 
unquestionable ; for while we retain the central doctrine 
of self-existence as alone a scientifically admissible, or non- 
gratuitous, explanation of things, we only change the 
original theory by transferring the application of this 
doctrine from the world of manifestations to that which 
causes the manifestations : we do not resort to any of the 
additional doctrines whereby the other theories of the 
universe were distinguished from the theory of Atheism 
in its original form. However, as by our recognition of 
the relativity of knowledge we are precluded from 
dogmatically denying any theory of the universe that may 
be proposed, it would clearly be erroneous to identify the 
doctrine of the Unknowable with the theory of Atheism : 
all we can say is, that, so far as speculative thought can 
soar, the permanent self-existence of an inconceivable 
Something, which manifests itself to consciousness as force 
and matter, constitutes the only datum that can be shown 
to be required for the purposes of a rational ontology. 

To sum up. In the theory which Mr. Fiske calls 
Cosmic Theism, while I am able to discern the elements 
which I think may properly be regarded as common to 
Theism and to Atheism, I am not able to discern any single 
element that is specifically distinctive of Theism. Still I 
am far from concluding that the theory in question is the 
theory of Atheism. All I wish to insist upon is this — 
that as the Absolute Being of Cosmism presents no other 
qualities than such as are required by the renovated theory 
of Atheism, its postulation supplies a basis, not for Theism, 
but for Non-theism : a man with such a postulate ought 
in strictness to abstain from either affirming or denying 
the existence of God. And this, I may observe, appears 



146 COSMIC THEISM. 

to be the position which Mr. Spencer himself has adopted 
as the only logical outcome of his doctrine of the 
Unknowable — a position which, in my opinion, it is 
most undesirable to obscure by endeavouring to give it a 
quasi-theistic interpretation. I may further observe, that 
we here seem to have a philosophical justification of 
the theological sentiment previously alluded to — the 
sentiment, namely, that by his attempt at a final purifi- 
cation of Theism, Mr. Fiske has destroyed those essential 
features of the theory in virtue of which alone it exists as 
Theism. For seeing it is impossible, from the relativity 
of knowledge, that the Absolute Being of Cosmism can 
ever be shown absolute in the sense required by Theism, 
and, even if it could, that it would still be but the 
Unconditioned Being of Atheism ; it follows that if this . 
Absolute Being is to be shown even in part to deserve 
the appellation of Deity, it must be shown to possess the 
only remaining attributes which are distinctive of Deity — 
to wit, personality and intelligence. But forasmuch as 
the final act of purifying the conception of Deity consists, 
according to Mr. Fiske, in expressly removing these 
particular attributes from the object of that conception, 
does it not follow that the conception which remains is, as 
I have said, not theistic, but non-theistic ? 

Here my criticism might properly have ended, were it 
not that Mr. Fiske, after having divested the Deity of all 
his psychical attributes, forthwith proceeds to show how 
it may be dimly possible to reinvest him with attributes 
that are " quasi-psychical." Mr. Fiske is, of course, far 
too subtle a thinker not to see that his previous argument 
from relativity precludes him from assigning much weight 
to the ontological speculations in which 'he here indulges, 
seeing that in whatever degree the relativity of knowledge 
renders legitimate the non-ascription to Deity of known 
psychical attributes, in some such degree at least must it 
render illegitimate the ascription to Deity of unknown 
psychical attributes. But in the part of his work in which 



COSMIC THEISM. 147 

he treats of the quasi-psychical attributes, Mr. Fiske is 
merely engaged in showing that the speculative standing 
of the " materialists " is inferior to that of the " spirit- 
ualists;" so that, as this is a subject distinct from Theism, he 
is not open to the charge of inconsistency. "Well, feeble as 
these speculations undoubtedly are in the support which 
they render to Theism, it nevertheless seems desirable to 
consider them before closing this review. The specula- 
tions in question are quoted from Mr. Spencer, and are as 
follows : — 

"Mind, as known to the possessor of it, is a circumscribed 
aggregate of activities ; and the cohesion of these activities, 
one with another, throughout the aggregate, compels the 
postulation of a something of which they are the activities. 
But the same experiences which make him aware of this 
coherent aggregate of mental activities, simultaneously 
make him aware of activities that are not included in it — 
outlying activities which become known by their effects 
on this aggregate, but which are experimentally proved to 
be not coherent with it, and to be coherent with one 
another (First Principles, §§ 43, 44). As, by tlie definition 
of them, these external activities cannot be brought within 
the aggregate of activities distinguished as those of Mind, 
they must for ever remain to him nothing more than the 
unknown correlatives of their effects on this aggregate; 
and can be thought of only in terms furnished by this 
aggregate. Hence, if he regards his conceptions of these 
activities lying beyond Mind as constituting knowledge 
of them, he is deluding himself: he is but representing 
these activities in terms of Mind, and can never do other- 
wise. Eventually he is obliged to admit that his ideas of 
Matter and Motion, merely symbolic of unknowable reali- 
ties, are complex states of consciousness built out of units 
of feeling. But if, after admitting this, he persists in 
asking whether units of feeling are of, the same nature as 
the units of force distinguished as external, or whether the 
units of force distinguished as external are of the same 



148 COSMIC THEISM. 

nature as units of feeling ; then tlie reply, still substan- 
tially the same, is that we may go further towards con- 
ceiving units of external force to be identical with units 
of feeling, than we can towards conceiving units of feeling 
to be identical with units of external force. Clearly, if 
units of external force are regarded as absolutely unknown 
and unknowable, then to translate units of feeling into 
them is to translate the known into the unknown, which 
is absurd. And if they are what they are supposed to be 
by those who identify them with their symbols, then the 
difficulty of translating units of feeling into them is insur- 
mountable : if Force as it objectively exists is absolutely 
alien in nature from that which exists subjectively as 
Feeling, then the transformation of Force into Feeling 
is unthinkable. Either way, therefore, it is impossible to 
interpret inner existence in terms of outer existence. But 
if, on the other hand, units of Force as they exist ob- 
jectively are essentially the same in nature with those 
manifested subjectively as units of Feeling, then a con- 
ceivable hypothesis remains open. Every element of that 
aggregate of activities constituting a consciousness is 
known as belonging to consciousness only by its cohesion 
with the rest. Beyond the limits of this coherent aggre- 
gate of activities exist activities quite independent of it, 
and which cannot be brought into it. We may imagine, 
then, that by their exclusion from the circumscribed 
activities constituting consciousness, these outer activities, 
though of the same intrinsic nature, become antithetically 
opposed in aspect. Being disconnected from consciousness, 
or cut off by its limits, they are thereby rendered foreign 
to it. Not being incorporated with its activities, or linked 
with these as they are with one another, consciousness 
cannot, as it were, run through them ; and so they come 
to be figured as unconscious — are symbolised as having 
the nature called material, as opposed to that called spirit- 
ual. While, however, it thus seems an imaginable possi- 
bility that units of external Force may be identical in 



COSMIC THEISM. 149 

nature with units of the force known as Feeling, yet we 
cannot by so representing them get any nearer to a com- 
prehension of external Force. For, as abeady shown, 
supposing all forms of Mind to be composed of homoge- 
neous units of feeling variously aggregated, the resolution 
of them into such units leaves us as unable as before to 
think of the substance of Mind as it exists in such units ; 
and thus, even could we really figure to ourselves all units 
of external Force as being essentially like units of the 
force known as Feeling, and as so constituting a universal 
sentiency, we should be as far as ever from forming a 
conception of that which is universally sentient." i 

Now while I agree with Mr. Fiske that we have here 
" the most subtle conclusion now within the ken of the 
scientific speculator, reached without any disregard of the 
canons prescribed by the doctrine of relativity," I would 
like to point out to minds less clear-sighted than his, that 
this same " doctrine of relativity " effectually debars us 
from using this " conclusion "as an argument of any as- 
signable value in favour of Theism. For the value of con- 
ceivability as a test of truth, on which this conclusion is 
founded, is here vitiated by the consideration that, luhatever 
the nature of Force-units may be, we can clearly perceive 
it to be a subjective necessity of the case that they should 
admit of being more easily conceived by us to be of the 
nature of Feeling-units than to be of any other nature. 
For as units of Feeling are the only entities of which we 
are, or can be, conscious, they are the entities into which 
units of Force must be, so to speak, subjectively translated 
before we can cognise their existence at all. Therefore, 
whatever the real nature of Force-units may be, ultimate 
analysis must show that it is more conceivable to identify 
them in thought with the only units of which we are 
cognisant, than it is to think of them as units of which 
we are not cognisant, and concerning which, therefore, 
conception is necessarily impossible. Or thus, the only 

^ Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 159-161. 



ISO COSMIC THEISM. 

alternative with respect to the classifying of Force-units 
lies between refusing to classify them at all, or classifying 
them with the only ultimate units with which we are 
acquainted. But this restriction, for aught that can ever 
be shown to the contrary, arises only from the subjective 
conditions of our own consciousness ; there is nothing to 
indicate that, in objective reality, units of Force are in any 
wise akin to units of Feeling. Conceivability, therefore, 
as a test of truth, is in this particular case of no assign- 
able degree of value ; for as the entities to which it is 
applied are respectively the highest known abstractions of 
subjective and objective existence, the test of conceivability 
is neutralised by directly encountering the inconceivable 
relation that subsists between subject and object. I think, 
therefore, it is evident that these ontological speculations 
present no sufi&cient warrant for an inference, even of the 
slenderest kind, that the Absolute Being of Cosmism pos- 
sesses attributes of a nature quasi-psychical ; and, if so, it 
follows that these speculations are incompetent to form 
the basis of a theory which, even by the greatest stretch 
of courtesy, can in any legitimate sense be termed quasi- 
theistic.i 

1 We thus see that the question of the " circumscrihed aggregate" of 
whether there may not be "some- units forming the individual con- 
thing quasi-psychical in the con- sciousness into the unlimited abyss 
stitution of things " is a question of similar units constituting the 
which does not affect the position of " Absolute Being " of the Cosmists, or 
Theism as it has been left by a nega- the "Divine Essence " of the Budd- 
tion of the self-conscious personality hists. Again, the doctrine in a 
of God. But as the speculations on vague form pervades the philosophy 
which this question has been reared of Spinoza, and is next clearly enun- 
are in themselves of much philoso- ciated by Wundt. Lastly, in a re- 
phical interest, I may here observe cently published veryremarkable essay 
that, in one form or another, they " On the Nature of Things in Them- 
have been diml}-- floating in men's selves," Professor Clifford arrives 
minds for a loug time past. Thus, at a similar doctrine by a different 
excepting the degree of certainty route. The following is the con- 
with which it is taught, we have in elusion to which he arrives : — " That 
Mr. Spencer's words above quoted a element of which, as we have seen, 
reversion to the doctrine of Buddha ; even the simplest feeling is a com- 
f or, as "force is persistent," all that plex, I shall call Mind-stuff. A 
would happen on death, supposing moving molecule 'of inorganic matter 
the doctrine true, would be an escape does not possess mind or con,scious- 



COSMIC THEISM. 151 

On the whole, then, I conclude that the term " Cosmic 
Theism " is not an appropriate term whereby to denote the 
theory of things set forth in " Cosmic Philosophy ; " and 
that it would therefore be more judicious to leave the 
doctrine of the Unknowable as Mr. Spencer has left it— 
that is, without theological implications of any kind. But 
in now taking leave of this subject, I should like it to be 
understood that the only reason why I have ventured thus 
to take exception to a part of Mr. Fiske's work is because 
I regret that a treatise which displays so much of literary 
excellence and philosophic power should lend itself to 
promoting what I regard as mistaken views concerning 
the ontological tendencies of recent thought, and this with 
no other apparent motive than that of unworthily retain- 
ing in the new philosophy a religious term the distinctive 
connotations of which are considered by that philosophy 
to have become obsolete. 

ness, but it possesses a small piece of consciousness ; that is to say, 

of mind-stuff. When molecules are changes in the complex which take 

so combined together as to form the place at the same time get so linked 

film on the under side of a^jellyfish, together that the repetition of one 

the elements of mind-stuff which go implies the repetition of the other, 

along with them are so combined as When matters take the complex form 

to form the faint beginnings of Sen- of a living human brain, the corre- 

tience. When the molecules are so sponding mind-stuff takes the form of 

combined as to form the brain and a human consciousness, having intel- 

nervous system of a vertebrate, the ligence and volition." (Mind, Janu- 

corresponding elemerts of mind-stuff ary, 1878.) 
are so combined as to form some kind 



( 152 ) 



II. 



. SUPPLEMENTAEY ESSAY IN KEPLY TO A 
EECENT WOEK ON THEISM.^ 

On perusing my main essay several years after its comple- 
tion, it occurred to me that another very effectual way of 
demonstrating the immense difference between the nature 
of all previous attacks upon the teleological argument and 
the nature of the present attack, would be briefly to review 
the reasonable objections to which all the previous attacks 
were open. Very opportunely a work on Theism has 
just been published which states these objections with 
great lucidity, and answers them with much ability. The 
work to which I allude is by the Eev. Professor Flint, and 
as it is characterised by temperate candour in tone and 
logical care in exposition, I felt on reading it that the 
work was particularly well suited for displaying the 
enormous change in the speculative standing of Theism 
which the foregoing considerations must be rationally 
deemed to have effected. I therefore determined on 
throwing my supplementary essay, which I had previously 
intended to write, into the form of a criticism on Professor 
Elint's treatise, and I adopted this course the more will- 
ingly because there are several other points dwelt upon 
in that treatise which it seems desirable for me to consider 
in the present one, although, for the sake of conciseness, 
I abstained from discussing them in my previous essay. 

1 Theism, by Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the 
University of Edinburgh, &c. 



SUPPLEMENTA R V ESS A Y. 153 

With these two objects in view, therefore, I undertook the 
following criticism.^ 

In the first place, it is needful to protest against an 
argument which our author adopts on the authority of 
Professor Clark Maxwell. The argument is now a well- 
known one, and is thus stated by Professor Maxwell in 
his presidential address before the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science, 1 870 : — " None of the pro- 
cesses of nature, since the time when nature began, have 
produced the slightest difference in the properties of any 
molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the 
existence of the molecules or the identity of their proper- 
ties to the operation of any of the causes which we call 
natural. On the other hand, the exact quality of each 
molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir 
John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a 
manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being 
eternal and self-existent. Thus we have been led along 
a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which 
science must stop. IN^ot that science is debarred from 
studying the externah mechanism of a molecule which she 
cannot take to pieces, any more than from investigating 
an organism which she cannot put together. But in trac- 
ing back the history of matter, science is arrested when 

^ Such being the objects in view, I Professor Flint himself. This sense 
have not thought it necessary to ex- is distinctly a different one from that 
tend this criticism into anything which the word bears in the writings 
resembling a review of Professor of the Paley, Bell, and Chalmers 
Flint's work as a whole ; but, on the school. For while in the latter writ- 
contrary, I have aimed rather at con- ings, as pointed out in Chapter III., 
fining my observations to those parts the word bears its natural meaning of 
of his treatise which embody the cur- a certain process of thought, in Pro- 
rent arguments from teleology alone, fessor Flint's work it is used rather 
I may here observe, however, in as expressive of a product of intelli- 
general terms, that I consider all his gence. In other words, " design," as 
arguments to have been answered by used by Professor Flint, is synony- 
anticipation in the foregoing examina- mous with intention, irrespective of 
tion of Theism. I may also here ob- the particular psychological process 
serve, that throughout the following by which the intention may have been 
essay I have used the word " design " put into effect, 
in the sense in which it is used by 



154 SUPPLEMENTAR V ESS A V IN REPL V 

she assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has 
been made, and, on the other, that it has not been made 
by any of the processes we call natural." 

Now it is obvious that we have here no real argument, 
since it is obvious that science can never be in a position 
to assert that atoms, the very existence of which is 
hypothetical, were never " made by any of the processes 
we call natural." The mere fact that in the universe, as 
we now know it, the evolution of material atoms is not 
observed to be taking place "by any of the processes we 
call natural," cannot possibly be taken as proof, or even 
as presumption, that there ever was a time when the 
material atoms now in existence were created by a super- 
natural cause. The fact cannot be taken to justify any 
such inference for the following reasons. In the first 
place, assuming the atomic theory to be true, and there is 
nothing in the argument to show that the now-existing 
atoms are not self-existing atoms, endowed with their 
peculiar and severally distinctive properties from all 
eternity. Doubtless the argument is, that as there appear 
to be some sixty or more elementary atoms constituting 
the raw material of the observable universe, ifc is incredible 
that they can all have owed their correlated properties 
to any cause other than that of a designing and manu- 
facturing intelligence. But, in the next place — and here 
comes the demolishing force of the criticism — science is 
not in a position to assert that these sixty or more ele- 
mentary atoms are in any real sense of the term elemen- 
tary. The mere fact that chemistry is as yet in too 
undeveloped a condition to pronounce whether or not all 
the forms of matter known to her are modifications of 
some smaller number of elements, or even of a single 
element, cannot possibly be taken as a warrant for so 
huge an inference as that there are really more than sixty 
elements all endowed with absolutely distinctive properties 
by a supernatural cause. Now this consideration, which 
arises immediately from the doctrine of the relativity of 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM, .155 

knowledge, is alone amply sufficient to destroy the present 
argument. But we must not on this account lose sight 
of the fact that, even to our strictly relative science in its 
present embryonic condition, we are not without decided 
indications, not only that the so-called elements are pro- 
bably for the most part compounds, but even that matter 
as a whole is one substance, which is itself probably but 
some modification of energy. Indeed, the whole tendency 
of recent scientific speculation is towards the view that 
the universe consists of some one substance, which, 
whether self-existing or created, is diverse only in its 
relation to ignorance. And if this view is correct, how 
obvious is the inference which I have elaborated in § 32, 
that all the diverse forms of matter, as we know them, were 
probably evolved by natural causes. So obvious, indeed, 
is this inference, that to resort to any supernatural hypo- 
thesis to explain the diverse properties of the various 
chemical elements appears to me a most glaring violation 
of the law of parcimony — as much more glaring, for 
instance, than the violation of this law by Paley, as the 
number and variety of organic species are greater than 
the number and variety of chemical species. And if it 
was illegitimate in Paley to use a mere absence of know- 
ledge as to how the transmutation of apparently fixed 
species of animals was effected as equivalent to the 
possession of knowledge that such transmutation had not 
been effected, how much more illegitimate must it be to 
commit a similar sin against logic in the case of the 
chemical elements, where our classification is confessedly 
beset with numberless difficulties, and when we begin to 
discern that in all probability it is a classification essenti- 
ally artificial. Lastly, the mere fact that the transmutation 
of chemical species and the evolution of chemical " atoms '* 
are processes which we do not now observe as occurring 
in nature, is surely a consideration of a far more feeble 
kind than it is even in the case of biological species and 
biological evolution ; seeing that nature's laboratory must 



1 56 SUPPLEMENTARY ESS A Y IN RE PL Y 

be now so inconceivably different from what it was 
during the condensation of the nebula. What an atrocious 
piece of arrogance, therefore, it is to assert that " none of 
the processes of nature, since the time when nature began, 
have produced the slightest difference in the properties of 
any molecule ! " No one can entertain a higher respect 
for Professor Clark Maxwell than I do ; but a single sen- 
tence of such a kind as this cannot leave two opinions in 
any impartial mind concerning his competency to deal 
with such subjects. 

I am therefore sorry to see this absurd argument 
approvingly incorporated in Professor Flint's work. He 
says, " I believe that no reply to these words of Professor 
Clark Maxwell is possible from any one who holds the 
ordinary view of scientific men as to the ultimate con- 
stitution of matter. They must suppose every atom, every 
molecule, to be of such a nature, to be so related to others 
and to the universe generally, that things may be such as 
we see them to be ; but this their fitness to be built up 
into the structure of the universe is a proof that they 
have been made fit, and since natural forces could not 
have acted on them while not yet existent, a supernatural 
power must have created them, and created them with a 
view to their manifold uses." Here the inference so con- 
fidently drawn would have been a weak one even were 
we not able to see that the doctrine of natural evolution 
probably applies to inorganic nature no less than to 
organic. For the inference is drawn from considerations 
of a character so transcendental and so remote from 
science, that unless we wish to be deceived by a merely 
verbal argument, we must feel that the possibilities of 
error in the inference are so numerous and indefinite, that 
the inference itself is well-nigh worthless as a basis of 
belief. But when we add that in Chapter IV. of the fore- 
going essay it has been shown to be within the legitimate 
scope of scientific reasoning to conclude that material 
atoms have been progressively evolved pari passu with 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 157 

the natural laws of chemical combination, it is evident 
that any force which the present argument could ever 
have had must now be pronounced as neutralised. Natu- 
ral causes have been shown, so far as scientific inference 
can extend, as not improbably sufficient to produce the 
observed effects ; and therefore we are no longer free to 
invoke the hypothetical action of any supernatural cause. 

The same observations apply to Professor Flint's theistic 
argument drawn from recent scientific speculations as to 
the vortex-ring construction of matter. If these specula- 
tions are sound, their only influence on Theism would be 
that of supplying a scientific demonstration of the sub- 
stantial identity of Force and Matter, and, so of supplying 
a still more valid basis for the theory as to the natural 
genesis of matter from a single primordial substance, in 
the manner sketched out in Chapter lY. For the argu- 
ment adduced by Professor Flint, that as the manner in 
which the vorticial motion of a ring is originated has not 
as yet been suggested, therefore its origination must have 
been due to a " Divine impulse," is an argument which 
again uses the absence of knowledge as equivalent to 
its possession. We are in the presence of a very novel 
and highly abstruse theory, or rather hypothesis, in physics, 
which was originally suggested by, and has hitherto been 
mainly indebted to, empirical experiments as distinguished 
from mathematical calculations ; and from the mere fact 
that, in the case of such a hypothesis, mathematicians 
have not as yet been able to determine the physical con- 
ditions required to originate vorticial motion, we are 
expected to infer that no such conditions can ever have 
existed, and therefore that every such vortex system, if it 
exists, is a miracle 1 

And substantially the same criticism applies to the 
argument which Professor Flint adduces — the argument 
also on which Professors Balfour and Tait lay so much 
stress in their work on the Unseen Universe — the argu- 
ment, namely, as to the non-eternal character of heat. 



158 SUPPLEMENTARY ESS A V IN REPLY 

The calculations on wliicli this argument depends would 
only be valid as sustaining this argument if they were 
based upon a knowledge of the universe as a whole, ; and 
therefore, as before, the absence of requisite knowledge 
must not be used as equivalent to its possession. 

These, however, are the weakest parts of Professor 
Mint's work. I therefore gladly turn to those parts 
which are exceedingly cogent as written from his stand- 
point, but which, in view of the strictures on the teleo- 
logical argument that I have adduced in Chapters lY. 
and YI., I submit to be now wholly valueless. 

" How could matter of itself produce order, even if it 
were self-existent and eternal ? It is far more unreasonable 
to believe that the atoms or constituents of matter pro- 
duced of themselves, without the action of a Supreme 
Mind, this wonderful universe, than that the letters of 
the English alphabet produced the plays of Shakespeare, 
without the slightest assistance from the human mind 
known by that famous name. These atoms might, per- 
haps, now and then, here and there, at great distances and 
long intervals, produce by a chance contact some curious 
collocation or compound ; but never could they produce 
order or organisation on an extensive scale, or of a durable 
character, unless ordered, arranged, and adjusted in ways 
of which intelligence alone can be the ultimate explana- 
tion. To believe that these fortuitous and indirected 
movements could originate the universe, and all the har- 
monies and utilities and beauties which abound in it, 
evinces a credulity far more extravagant than has ever 
been displayed by the most superstitious of religionists. 
Yet no consistent materialist can refuse to accept this 
colossal chance hypothesis. All the explanations of the 
order of the universe which materialists, from Democritus 
and Epicurus to Diderot and Lange, have devised, rest on 
the assumption that the elements of matter, being eternal, 
must pass through infinite combinations, and that one of 
these must be our present world — a special collocation 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 159 

among the countless millions of collocations, past and 
future. Throw the letters of the Greek alphabet, it has 
been said, an infinite number of times, and you must 
produce the ' Iliad ' and all the Greek books. The theory 
of probabilities, I need hardly say, requires us to believe 
nothincr so absurd. . . . But what is the ' Iliad ' to the 
hymn of creation and the drama of providence ? " &c. 

JSTow this I conceive to have been a fully valid argu- 
ment at the time it was published, and indeed the most 
convincincf of all the arguments in favour of Theism. 
But, as already so frequently pointed out, the considera- 
tions adduced in Chapter lY. of the present work are 
utterly destructive of this argument. For this argument 
assumes, rightly enough, that the only alternative we 
have in choosing our hypothesis concerning the final ex- 
planation of things is either to regard that explanation 
as Intelligence or as Fortuity. This, I say, was a legiti- 
mate argument a few months ago, because up to that time 
no one had shown that strictly natural causes, as dis- 
tinguished from chances, could conceivably be able to 
produce a cosmos ; and although the several previous 
writers to whom Professor Flint alludes — and he might 
have alluded to others in this connection — entertained a 
dim anticipation of the fact that natural causes might 
alone be sufficient to produce the observed universe, 
still these dim anticipations were worthless as arguments 
so long as it remained impossible to suggest any natural 
jprinciple whereby such a result could have been conceiv- 
ably effected by such causes. But it is evident that Pro- 
fessor Flint's time-honoured argument is now completely 
overthrown, unless it can be proved that there is some 
radical error in the reasoning whereby I have endeavoured 
to show that natural causes not only may, but must, have 
produced existing order. The overthrow is complete, be- 
cause the very groundwork of the argument in question is 
knocked away ; a third possibility, of the nature of a neces- 
sity, is introduced, and therefore the alternative is no longer 



i6o SUPPLEMENTARY ESSA Y IN REPLY 

between Intelligence and Fortuity, but between Intelli- 
gence and Natural Causation. Whereas the overwhelmincr 
strength of the argument from Order has hitherto consisted 
in the supposition of Intelligence as the one and only con- 
ceivable cause of the integration of things, my exposition 
in Chapter lY. has shown that such integration must have 
been due, at all events in a relative or proximate sense, 
to a strictly physical cause — the persistence of force and 
the consequent self-evolution of natural law. And the 
question as to whether or not Intelligence may not have 
been the absolute or ultimate cause is manifestly a ques- 
tion altogether alien to the argument from Order ; for if 
existing order admits of being accounted for, in a relative 
or proximate sense, by merely physical causes, the argu- 
ment from a relative or proximate order is not at liberty 
to infer or to assume the existence of any higher or more 
ultimate cause. Although, therefore, in Chapter V., I 
have been careful to point out that the fact of existing 
order having been due to proximate or natural causes 
does not actually disprove the possible existence of an 
ultimate and supernatural cause, still it must be carefully 
observed that this negative fact cannot possibly justify 
any positive inference to the existence of such a cause. 

Thus, upon* the whole, it may be said, without danger of 
reasonable dispute, that as the argument from Order has 
hitherto derived its immense weight entirely from the fact 
that Intelligence appeared to be the one and only cause 
sufficient to produce the observed integration of the 
cosmos, this immense weight has now been completely 
counterpoised by the demonstration that other causes of 
a strictly physical kind must have been instrumental, if 
not themselves alone sufficient, to produce this integration. 
So that, just as in the case of Astronomy the demonstra- 
tion of the one natural principle of gravity was sufficient 
to classify under one physical explanation several observed 
facts which many persons had previously attributed to su- 
pernatural causes ; and just as in the more complex science 



70 A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. i6i 

of Geology the demonstration of the one principle of 
uniformitarianism was sufficient to explain, without the 
aid of supernaturalism, a still greater number of facts ; and, 
lastly, just as in the case of the still more complex science 
of Biology the demonstration of the one principle of 
natural selection was sufficient to marshal under one 
scientific, or natural, hypothesis an almost incalculable 
number of facts which were previously explained by 
the metaphysical hypothesis of supernatural design ; so in 
the science which includes all other sciences, and which we 
may term the science of Cosmology, I assert with confi- 
dence that in the one principle of the persistence of force we 
have a demonstrably harmonising principle, whereby all the 
facts within our experience admit of being collocated under 
one natural explanation, without there being the smallest 
reason to attribute these facts to any supernatural cause. 

But perhaps the immense change which these considera- 
tions must logically be regarded as having produced in 
the speculative standing of the argument from teleology 
will be better appreciated if I continue to quote from Pro- 
fessor Flint's very forcible and thoroughly logical exposi- 
tion of the previous standing of this argument. He says : — 

" To ascribe the origination of order to law is a manifest 
evasion of the real problem. Law is order. Law is the 
very thing to be explained. The question is — Has law a 
reason, or is it without a reason ? The unperverted human 
mind cannot believe it to be without a reason." 

I do not know where a more terse and accurate state- 
ment of the case could be found ; and to my mind the 
question so lucidly put admits of the direct answer — Law 
clearly has a reason of a purely physical kind. And 
therefore I submit that the following quotation which 
Professor Flint makes from Professor Jevons, log^ical as it 
was when written, must now be regarded as embodying an 
argument which is obsolete. 

" As an unlimited number of atoms can be placed in 
unlimited space in an unlimited number of modes of dis- 



1 62 SUPPLEMENTARY ESS A V IN REPLY 

tribution, there must, even granting matter to have had all 
its laws from eternity, have been at some moment in time, 
out of the unlimited choices and distributions possible, 
that one choice and distribution which yielded the fair 
and orderly universe that now exists. Only out of rational 
choice can order have come." 

But clearly the alternative is now no longer one between 
chance and choice. If natural laws arise by way of neces- 
sary consequence from the persistence of a single self- 
existing substance, it becomes a matter of scientific 
(though not of logical) demonstration that " the fair and 
orderly universe that now exists" is the one and only 
universe that, in the nature of things, can exist. But to 
continue this interesting passage from Dr. Flint's work — 
interesting not only because it sets forth the previous 
standing of this subject with so much clearness, but also 
because the work is of such very recent publication. 

" The most common mode, perhaps, of evading the pro- 
blem which order presents to reason is the indication of the 
process by which the order has been realised. From 
Democritus to the latest Darwinian there have been men 
w^ho supposed they had completely explained away the 
evidences of design in nature when they had described the 
physical antecedents of the arrangements appealed to as 
evidences. Aristotle showed the absurdity of this supposi- 
tion more than 2200 years ago." 

isTow this is a perfectly valid criticism on all such pre- 
vious non-theistical aro^uments as were drawn from an 
" indication of the process by which the order has been 
realised ; " for in all these previous arguments there was 
an absence of any physical explanation of the ultimate 
cause of the process contemplated, and so long as this 
ultimate cause remained obscure, although the evidence of 
design might by these arguments have been excluded from 
particular processes, the evidence of design could not be 
similarly excluded from the ultimate cause of these pro- 
cesses. Thus, for instance, it is doubtless illogical, as 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 163 

Professor Flint points out, in any Darwinian to argue that 
because his theory of natural selection supplies him with 
a natural explanation of the process whereby organisms 
have been adapted to their surroundings, therefore this 
process need not itself have been designed. That is to 
say, in general terms, as insisted upon in the foregoing 
essay, the discovery of a natural law or orderly process 
cannot of itself justify the inference that this law or 
method of orderly procedure is not itself a product of 
supernatural Intelligence ; but, on the contrary, the very 
existence of such orderly processes, considered only in 
relation to their products, must properly be regarded as 
evidence of the best possible kind in favour of super- 
natural Intelligence, 'provided that no natural cause, can he 
suggested as adequate to explain the origin of these processes. 
But this is precisely what the persistence of force, con- 
sidered as a natural cause, must be pronounced as neces- 
sarily competent to achieve ; for we can clearly see that all 
these processess obviously must and actually do derive 
their origin from this one causative principle. And 
whether or not behind this one causative principle of 
natural law there exists a still more ultimate cause in the 
form of a supernatural Intelligence, this is a question 
altogether foreign to any argument from teleology, seeing 
that teleology, in so far as it is teleology, can only rest upon 
the observed facts of the cosmos ; and if these facts admit 
of being explained by the action of a single causative 
principle inherent in the cosmos itself, teleology is not free 
to assume the action of any causative principle of a more 
ultimate character. Still, as I have repeatedly insisted, 
these considerations do not entitle us dogmatically to deny 
the existence of some such more ultimate principle ; all 
that these considerations do is to remove any rational 
argument from teleological sources that any such more 
ultimate principle exists. Therefore I am, of course, quite 
at one with Professor Flint where he says Professor 
Huxley " admits that the most thoroughgoing evolutionist 



1 64 S UPPLEMENTAR V ESS A V IN REPL Y 

must at least assume ' a primordial molecular arrangement 
of which all the phenomena of the universe are the conse- 
quences/ and ' is thereby at the mercy of the theologist, 
who can defy him to disprove that this primordial mole- 
cular arrangement was not intended to involve the pheno- 
mena of the universe/ Granting this much, he is logically 
bound to grant more. If the entire evolution of the uni- 
verse may have been intended, the several stages of its 
evolution may have been intended, and they may have 
been intended for their own sakes as well as for the sake 
of the collective evolution or its final result/' Now that such 
may have heen the case, I have been careful to insist in 
Chapter V. ; all I am now concerned with is to show that, 
in view of the considerations adduced in Chapter IV., there 
is no longer any evidence' to prove, or even to indicate, that 
such has heen the case. And with reference to this oppor- 
tune quotation from Professor Huxley I may remark, that 
the " thoroughgoing evolutionist " is now no longer " at 
the mercy of the theologian " to any further extent than 
that of not being able to disprove a purely metaphysical 
hypothesis, which is as certainly superfluous, in any scien- 
tific sense, as the fundamental data of science are certainly 
true. 

It may seem almost unnecessary to extend this post- 
script by pursuing further the criticism on Professor Flint's 
exposition in the light of " a single new reason . . . for 
the denial of design " which he challenges ; but there are 
nevertheless one or two other points which it seems desir- 
able to consider. Professor Flint writes : — 

" M. Comte imas^ines that he has shown the inference 
from design, from the order and stability of the solar sys- 
tem, to be unwarranted, when he has pointed out the phy- 
sical conditions through which that order and stability are 
secured, and the process by which they have been obtained. 
. . . Now the assertion that the peculiarities which make the 
solar system stable and the earth habitable have flowed 
naturally and necessarily from the simple mutual gravity 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 165 

of the several parts of nebulous matter is one whicli 
greatly requires proof, but which has never received it. 
In saying this, we do not challenge the proof of the nebu- 
lar theory itself. That theory may or may not be true. 
We are quite willing to suppose it true — to grant that it 
has been scientifically established. What we maintain is, 
that even if we admit unreservedly that the earth and the 
whole system to which it belongs once existed in a nebu- 
lous state, from which they were gradually evolved into 
their present condition conformably to physical laws, we 
are in no desjree entitled to infer from the admission the 
conclusion which Comte and others have drawn. The man 
who fancies that the nebular theory implies that the law 
of gravitation, or any other physical law, has of itself deter- 
mined the course of cosmical evolution, so that there is no 
need for believing in the existence and operation of a 
divine mind, proves merely that he is not exempt from 
reasoning very illogically. The solar system could only 
have been evolved out of its nebulous state into that which 
it now presents if the nebula possessed a certain size, mass, 
form, and constitution, if it was neither too fluid nor too 
tenacious — if its atoms were all numbered, its elements all 
weighed, its constituents all disposed in due relation to 
one another ; that is to say, only if the nebula was in 
reality as much a system of order, which Intelligence alone 
could account for, as the worlds which have been de- 
veloped from it. The origin of the nebula thus presents 
itself to reason as a problem which demands solution no 
less than the origin of the planets. All the properties and 
laws of the nebula require to be accounted for. What 
origin are we to give them ? It must be either reason or 
unreason. We may go back as far as we please, but at every 
step and stage of the regress we must find ourselves con- 
fronted with the same question, the same alternative — 
intelligent purpose or colossal chance." 

Now, so far as Comte is here guilty of the fallacy I have 
already dwelt upon of buUding a destructive argument 



i66 SUPPLEMENTARY ESS A V IN REPL V 

upon a demonstration of mere orderly processes in nature, 
as distinguished from a demonstration of the natural cause 
of these processes, it is not for me to defend him. All we 
can say with regard to him in this connection is, that, 
having a sort of scientific presentiment that if the know- 
ledge of his day were sufficiently advanced it would prove 
destructive of supernaturalism in the higher and more 
ahstruse provinces of physical speculation, as it had pre- 
viously proved in the lower and less abstruse of these pro- 
vinces, Comte allowed his inferences to outrun their legi- 
timate basis. Being necessarily ignorant of the one gene- 
rating cause of orderly processes in nature, he improperly 
allowed himself to found conclusions on the basis of these 
processes alone, which could only be properly founded on 
the basis of their cause. But freely granting this much to 
Professor Flint, and the rest of his remarks in this con- 
nection will be found, in view of the altered standing of 
this subject, to be open to amendment, For, in the first 
place, no one need now resort to the illogical supposition 
that " the law of gravitation or any other physical law has 
of itself determined the course of cosmical evolution." 
What we may argue, and what must be conceded to us, is, 
that the common substratum of all physical laws was at 
one time sufficient to produce the simplest physical laws, 
and that throughout the whole course of evolution this 
common substratum has always been sufficient to produce 
the more complex laws in the ascending series of their 
ever-increasing number and variety. And hence it be- 
comes obvious that the " origin of the nebula " presents a 
difficulty neither greater nor less than " the origin of the 
planets," since, " if we may go back as far as we please," 
we can entertain no scientific doubt that we should come to 
a time, prior even to the nebula, when the substance of the 
solar system existed merely as such — i.e., in an almost or 
in a wholly undifferentiated form, the product, no doubt, 
of endless cycles of previous evolutions and dissolutions 
of formal differentiations. Therefore, although it is un- 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 167 

doubtedly true that " the solar system could only have been 
evolved out of its nebulous state into that which it now 
presents if the nebula possessed" those particular attri- 
butes which were necessary to the evolution of such a pro- 
duct, this consideration is clearly deprived of all its force 
from our present point of view. For unless it can be 
shown that there is some independent reason for believing 
these particular attributes — which must have been of a 
more and more simple a character the further we recede 
in time — to have been miraculously imposed, the analogy 
is overwhelming that they all progressively arose hy way ^ 
of natural law. And if so, the universe which has been 
thus produced is the only universe in this particular point 
of space and time which could have been thus produced. 
That it is an orderly universe we have seen ad nauseam to 
be no argument in favour of its having been a designed 
universe, so long as the cause of its order — general laws — 
can be seen to admit of a natural explanation. 

Thus there is clearly nothing to be gained on the side of 
teleology by going back to the dim and dismal birth of 
the nebula ; for no " thoroughgoing evolutionist " would 
for one moment entertain the supposition that natural law 
in the simplest phases of its development partook any 
more of a miraculous character than it does in its more 
recent and vastly more complex phases. The absence of 
knowledge must not be used as equivalent to its presence ; 
and if analogy can be held to justify any inference what- 
soever, surely we may conclude with confidence that if 
existing general laws admit of being conceivably attributed 
to a natural genesis, the primordial laws of a condensing 
nebula must have been the same. 

There is another passage in Professor Flint's work to 
which it seems desirable to refer. It begins thus : " There 
is the law of heredity : like produces like. But why is 
there such a law ? Why does like produce like ? . . . . 
Physical science cannot answer these questions ; but that 
is no reason why they should not both be asked and . 



i68 SUPPLEMENTARY ESS A V IN REPLY 

answered. I can conceive of no other intelligent answer 
being given to them than that there is a God of wisdom, 
who designed that the world should be for all ages the 
abode of life/' &c. 

Now here we have in another form that same vicious 
tendency to take refuge in the more obscure cases of 
physical causation as proofs of supernatural design — the 
obscurity in this case arising from the complexity of the 
causes and work, as in the former case it arose from their 
remoteness in time. But in both cases the same answer is 
patent, viz., that although " physical science cannot answer 
these questions " by pointing out the precise sequence of 
causes and effects, physical science is nevertheless quite as 
certain that this precise sequence arises in its last resort 
from the persistence of force, as she would be were she 
able to trace the whole process. And therefore, in view of 
the considerations set forth in Chapter IV. of this work, it 
is no longer open to Professor Flint or to any other writer 
logically to assert — " I can conceive of no other intelligent 
answer being given to " such questions " than that there is 
a God of wisdom." 

The same answer awaits this author's further disquisi- 
tion on other biological laws, so it is needless to make any 
further quotations in this connection. But there is one 
other principle embodied in some of these passages which 
it seems undesirable to overlook. It is said, for instance, 
"Natural selection might have had no materials, or 
altogether insufficient materials, to work with, or the 
circumstances might have been such that the lowest 
organisms were the best endowed for the struggle for life. 
If the earth were covered with water, fish would survive 
and higher creatures would perish." 

Now the principle here embodied — viz., that had the 
conditions of evolution been other than they were, the 
results would have been different — is, of course, true ; but 
clearly, on the view that all natural laws spring from the 
persistence of force, no other conditions than those which 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 169 

actually occurred, or are now occurring, could ever have 
occurred, — the whole course of evolution must have been, 
in all its phases and in all its processes, an unconditional 
necessity. But if it is said, How fortunate that the out- 
come, being unconditionally necessary, has happened to be 
so good as it is ; I answer that the remark is legitimate 
enough if it is not intended to convey an implication that 
the general quality of the outcome points to beneficent 
design as to its cause. Such an implication would not be 
legitimate, because, in the first place, we have no means of 
knowing in how many cases, whether in planets, stars, or 
systems, the course of evolution has failed to produce life 
and mind — the one known case of this earth, whether 
or not it is the one success out of millions of abor- 
tions, being of necessity the only known case. In how 
vastly greater a number of cases the course of evolu- 
tion may have been, so to speak, deflected by some 
even slight, though strictly necessary, cause from produc- 
ing self-conscious intelligence, it is impossible to conjec- 
ture. But this consideration, be it observed, is not here 
adduced in order to disprove the assertion that telluric 
evolution has been effected by Intelligence ; it is merely 
adduced to prove that such an assertion cannot rest on 
the single known result of telluric evolution, so long as 
an infinite number of the results of evolution elsewhere 
remain unknown. 

And now, lastly, it must be observed that even in the 
one case with which we are acquainted, the net product of 
evolution is not such as can of itself point us to heneficent 
design. Professor Flint, indeed, in common with theo- 
logians generally, argues that it does. I will therefore 
briefly criticise his remarks on this subject, believing, as I 
do, that they form a very admirable illustration of what I 
conceive to be a general principle — viz., that minds which 
already believe in the existence of a Deity are, as a rule, 
not in a position to view this question of beneficence 
in nature in a perfectly impartial manner. For if the 



I70 SUPPLEMENTARY ESS A V IN REPLY 

existence of a Deity is presupposed, a mind with any 
particle of that most noble quality — reverence — will 
naturally hesitate to draw conclusions that partake of the 
nature of blasphemy ; and therefore, unconsciously perhaps 
to themselves, they endeavour in various ways to evade 
the evidence which, if honestly and impartially considered, 
can scarcely fail to negative the argument from beneficence 
in the universe. 

Professor Flint argues that the "law of over-produc- 
tion," and the consequent struggle for existence, being 
" the reason why the world is so wonderfully rich in the 
most varied forms of life," is " a means to an end worthy 
of Divine Wisdom." "Although involving privation, 
pain, and conflict, its final result is order and beauty. 
All the perfections of sentient creatures are represented as 
due to it. Through it the lion has gained its strength, 
the deer its speed, and the dog its sagacity. The inference 
seems natural that these perfections were designed to be 
attained by it ; that this state of struggle was ordained for 
the sake of the advantages which it is actually seen to 
produce. The suffering which the conflict involves may 
indicate that God has made even animals for some higher end 
than happiness — that he cares for animal perfection as 
well as for animal enjoyment ; but it affords no reason for 
denying that the ends which the conflict actually serves 
it was intended to serve." 

Now, whatever may be thought of such an argument as 
an attempted justification of beneficent design already on 
independent ground believed to exist, it is manifestly no 
argument at all as establishing any presumption in favour 
of such design, unless it could be shown that the Deity is 
so far limited in his power of adapting means to ends 
that the particular method adopted in this case was the 
best, all things considered, that he was able to adopt. 
For supposing the Deity to be, what Professor Flint main- 
tains that he is — viz., omnipotent — and there can be no 
inference more transparent than that such wholesale 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 171 

suffering, for whatever ends designed, exhibits an incal- 
culably greater deficiency of beneficence in the divine 
character than that which we know in any, the very worst, 
of human characters. For let us pause for one moment 
to think of what suffering in nature means. Some 
hundreds of millions of years ago some millions of millions 
of animals must be supposed to have been sentient. 
Since that time till the present, there must have been 
millions and millions of generations of millions of millions 
of individuals. And throughout all this period of incal- 
culable duration, this inconceivable host of sentient 
organisms have been in a state of unceasing battle, dread, 
ravin, pain. Looking to the outcome, we find that more 
than half of the species which have survived the ceaseless 
struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient 
forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms ; we 
find teeth and talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and 
suckers moulded for torment — everywhere a reign of terror, 
hunger, and sickness, with oozing blood and quivering 
limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence that 
dimly close in deaths of brutal torture ! Is it said that 
there are compensating enjoyments ? I care not to strike 
the balance ; the enjoyments I plainly perceive to be as 
physically necessary as the pains, and this whether or 
not evolution is due to design. Therefore all I am con- 
cerned with is to show, that if such a state of things is 
due to " omnipotent design," the omnipotent designer 
must be concluded, so far as reason can infer, to be non- 
beneficent. And this it is not difficult to show. When I 
see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring-trap, I 
abhor the devilish nature of the being who, with full 
powers of realising what pain means, can deliberately 
employ his noble faculties of invention in contriving a 
thing so hideously cruel. But if I could believe that 
there is a being who, with yet higher faculties of thought 
and knowledge, and with an unlimited choice of means 
to secure his ends, has contrived untold thousands of 



172 SUPPLEMENTAR V ESS A V IN REPL Y 

meclianisms no less diabolical than a spring-trap ; I shonld 
call that being a fiend, were all the world besides to call 
him God. Am I told that this is arrogance ? It is nothing 
of the kind ; it is plain morality, and to say otherwise would 
be to hide our eyes from murder because we dread the 
Murderer. Am I told that I am not competent to judge 
the purposes of the Almighty ? I answer that if these are 
purposes, I am able to judge of them so far as I can see ; 
and if I am expected to judge of his purposes when they 
appear to be beneficent, I am in consistency obliged also 
to judge of them when they appear to be malevolent. 
And it can be no possible extenuation of the latter to 
point to the " final result " as " order and beauty," so long 
as the means adopted by the " Omnipotent Designer" are 
known to have been so revolting. All that we could 
legitimately assert in this case would be, that so far as 
observation can extend, " he cares for animal perfection " 
to the exclusion of " animal enjoyment," and even to the 
total disregard of animal suffering. But to assert this 
would merely be to deny beneficence as an attribute 
of God. 

The dilemma, therefore, which Epicurus has stated with 
great lucidity, and which Professor Flint quotes, appears 
to me so obvious as scarcely to require statement. The 
dilemma is, that, looking to the facts of organic nature, 
theists must abandon their belief, either in the divine 
omnipotence, or in the divine beneficence. And yet, such 
is the warping effect of preformed beliefs on the mind, that 
even so candid a writer as Professor Flint can thus write 
of this most obvious truth : — 

" The late Mr. John Stuart Mill, for no better reason 
than that nature sometimes drowns men and burns them^ 
and that childbirth is a painful process, maintained that 
God could not possibly be infinite. I shall not say what 
I think of the shallowness and self-conceit displayed by 
such an argument. What it proves is not the finiteness of 
God, but the littleness of man. The mind of man never 



A TO RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 173 

shows itself so small as when it tries to measure the 
attributes and limit the greatness of its Creator." 

But the argument — or rather the truism — in question 
is an attempt to do neither the one nor the other; it 
simply asserts the patent fact that, if God is omnipotent, 
and so had an unlimited choice of means whereby to 
accomplish the ends of "animal perfection," "animal 
enjoyment," and the rest; then the fact of his having 
chosen to adopt the means which he has adopted is a fact 
which is wholly incompatible with his beneficence. And 
on the other hand, if he is beneficent, the fact of his 
having adopted these means in order that the sum of 
ultimate enjoyment might exceed the sum of concomi- 
tant pain, is a fact which is wholly incompatible with 
his omnipotence. To a man who already believes, on 
independent grounds, in an omnipotent and beneficent 
Deity, it is no doubt possible to avoid facing this 
dilemma, and to rest content with the assumption that, in 
a sense beyond the reach of human reason, or even of 
human conception, the two horns of this dilemma must be 
united in some transcendental reconciliation; but if a 
man undertakes to reason on the subject at all, as he 
must and ought when the question is as to the existence of 
such a Deity, then clearly he has no alternative but to 
allow that the dilemma is a hopeless one. With inverted 
meaning, therefore, may we quote Professor Flint's words 
against himself : — " The mind of man never shows itself 
so small as when it tries to measure the attributes .... 
of its Creator ; " for certainly, if Professor Flint's usually 
candid mind has had a Creator, it nowhere displays the 
" littleness " of prejudice in so marked a degree as it does 
when " measuring his attributes." 

Thus in a subsequent chapter he deals at greater length 
Avith this difficulty of the apparent failure of beneficence 
in nature, arguing, in effect, that as pain and suffering 
" serve many good ends " in the way of warning animals 
of danger to life, &c._, therefore we ought to conclude that, 



1 74 SUPPLEMENTA R V ESS A V IN REPL Y 

if we coTild see farther, we should see pain and suffering 
to be "unmitigated good, or nearly so. Now this argument, 
as I have previously said, may possible be admissible as 
between Christians or others who already believe in the 
existence and in the beneficence of God ; but it is only the 
blindest prejudice which can fail to perceive that the argu- 
ment is quite without relevancy when the question is as to 
the evidences of such existence and the evidences of such 
character. For where the fact of such an existence and 
character is the question in dispute, it clearly can be no 
argument to state its bare assumption by saying that if we 
knew more of nature we should find the relative prepon- 
derance of good over evil to be immeasurably greater than 
that which we now perceive. The platform of argument on 
which the question of " Theism " must be discussed is that 
of the observable Cosmos ; and if, as Dr. Flint is constrained 
to admit, there is a fearful spectacle of misery presented 
by this Cosmos, it becomes mere question-begging to gloss 
over this aspect of the subject by any vague assumption 
that the misery must have some unobservable ends of so 
transcendentally beneficent a nature, that were they known 
they would justify the means. Indeed, this kind of dis- 
cussion seems to me worse than useless for the purposes 
which the Professor has in view ; for it only serves by con- 
trast to throw out into stronger relief the natural and the 
unstrained character of the adverse interpretation of the 
facts. According to this adverse interpretation, sentiency 
has been evolved by natural selection to secure the bene- 
fits which are pointed out by Professor Flint ; and there- 
fore the fact of this, its cause, having been a mindless cause, 
clearly implies that the restriction of pain and suffering 
cannot be an active principle, or a vera causa, as between 
species and species, though it must be such within the 
limits of the same organism, and to a lesser extent within 
the limits of the same species. And this is just what we 
find to be the case. Therefore, without the need of resort- 
ing to wholly arbitrary assumptions concerning transcen- 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 175 

dental reconciliations between apparently needless suffer- 
ing and a supposed almighty beneficence, the non-theistic 
hypothesis is saved by merely opening our eyes to the ob- 
servable facts around us, and there seeing that pain and 
misery, alike in the benefits which they bring and in the 
frightful excesses which they manifest, play just that part 
in nature which this hypothesis would lead us to expect. 

Therefore, to sum up these considerations on physical 
suffering, the case between a theist and a sceptic as to the 
question of divine beneficence is seen to be a case of ex- 
treme simplicity. The theist believes in such beneficence 
by purposely concealing from his mind all adverse evidence 
— feeling, on the one side, that to entertain the doubt to 
which this evidence points would be to hold dalliance with 
blasphemy, and, on the other side, that the subject is of so 
transcendental a nature that, in view of so great a risk, it 
is better to avoid impartial reasoning upon it. A sceptic, 
on the other hand, is under no such obligation to precon- 
ceived ideas, and is therefore free to draw unbiassed infer- 
ences as to the character of God, if he exists, to the extent 
which such character is indicated by the sphere of observ- 
able nature. And, as I have said, when the subject is so 
viewed, the inference is unavoidable that, so far as human 
reason can penetrate, God, if he exists, must either be non- 
infinite in his resources, or non-beneficent in his designs. 
Therefore it is evident that when the heing of God, as dis- 
tinguished from his character, is the subject in dispute, 
Theism can gain nothing by an appeal to evidences of hcne- 
ficent designs. If such evidences were unequivocal, then 
indeed the argument which they would establish to an intel- 
ligent cause of nature would be almost irresistible ; for the 
fact of the external world being in harmony with the moral 
nature of man would be unaccountable except on the suppo- 
sition of both having derived their origin from a common 
moral source ; and morality implies intelligence. But as it 
is, all the so-called evidence of divine beneficence in nature 
is, without any exception of a kind that is worthless as 



176 SUPPLEMENTARY ESSA V IN REPLY 

proving design ; for all tlie facts admit of being explained 
equally well on the supposition of their having been due 
to purely physical processes, acting through the various 
biological laws which we are now only beginning to under- 
stand. And further than this, so far are these facts from 
proving the existence of a moral cause, that, in view of the 
alternative just stated, they even ground a positive argu- 
ment to its negation. For, as we have seen, all these facts 
are just of such a kind as we should expect to be the facts, 
on the supposition of their having been due to natural 
causes — i.e., causes which could have had no moral solici- 
tude for animal happiness as such. Let us now, in conclu- 
sion, dwell on this antithesis at somewhat greater length. 

If natural selection has played any large share in the 
process of organic evolution, it is evident that animal enjoy- 
ment, being an important factor in this natural cause, 
must always have been furthered to the extent in which it 
%oas necessary for the adaptation of organisms to their en- 
vironment that it should. And such we invariably find to 
be the limits within which animal enjoyments are confined. 
On the other hand, so long as the adaptations in question 
are not complete, so long must more or less of suffering be 
entailed — the capacity for suffering, as for enjoyment, being 
no doubt itself a product of natural selection. But as 
all specific types are perpetually struggling together, it is 
manifest that the competition must prevent any consider- 
able number of types from becoming so far adapted to 
their environment of other types as to become exempt from 
suffering as a result of this competition. There being no 
one integrating cause of an intelligent or moral nature to 
supply the conditions of happiness to each organic type 
without the misery of this competition, such happiness 
as animals have is derived from the heavy expenditure of 
pain suffered by themselves and by their ancestry. 

Thus, whether we look to animal pleasures or to animal 
pains, the result is alike just what we should expect to 
find on the supposition of these pleasures and pains having 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM. 177 

been due to necessary and physical, as distinguislied from 
intelligent and moral, antecedents ; for how different is that 
which is from that which might have been ! Not only 
might beneficent selection have eliminated the countless 
species of parasites which now destroy the health and 
happiness of all the higher organisms; not only might 
survival of the fittest, in a moral sense, have determined 
that rapacious and carnivorous animals should yield their 
places in the world to harmless and gentle ones ; not only 
might life have been without sickness and death without 
pain ; — but how might the exigences and the welfare 
of species have been consulted by the structures and 
the habits of one another ! But no ! Amid all the 
millions of mechanisms and habits in organic nature, all 
of which are so beautifully adapted to the needs of the 
species presenting them, there is no single instance of any 
mechanism or habit occurring in one species for the 
exclusive benefit of another species — although, as we 
should expect on the non-theistic theory, there are some 
comparatively few cases of a mechanism or a habit which 
is of benefit to its possessor being also utilised by other 
species. Yet, on the beneficent-design theory, it is im- 
possible to understand why, when all mechanisms and 
habits in the same species are invariably correlated for the 
benefit of that species, there should never be any such 
correlation between mechanisms and habits of different 
species. For how magnificent, how sublime a display of 
supreme beneficence would nature have afforded if all her 
sentient animals had been so inter-related as to minister to 
each other's happiness ! Organic species might then have 
been likened to a countless multitude of voices, all singing 
to their Creator in one harmonious psalm of praise. But, 
as it is, we see no vestige of such correlation; every 
species is for itself, and for itself alone — an outcome of the 
always and everywhere fiercely raging struggle for life. 

So much, then, for the case of physical evil ; but Dr. 
Flint also treats of the case of moral evil. Let us see 

M 



178 SUPPLEMENTARY ESS A V IN REPLY 

what this well-equipped writer can make of this old pro- 
blem in the present year of grace. He says — " But it will 
be objected, could not God have made moral creatures who 
would be certain always to choose what is right, always to 
acquiesce in His holy will ? . . . Well, far be it from me 
to deny that God could have originated a sinless moral 
system. . . . But if questioned as to why He has not done 
better, I feel no shame in confessing my ignorance. It 
seems to me that when you have resolved the problem of 
the origin of moral evil into the question, Why has God 
not originated a moral universe in which the lowest moral 
being would be as excellent as the archangels are ? you 
have at once shown it to be speculatively incapable of 
solution [italics mine], and practically without impor- 
tance [!]. The question is one which would obviously 
give rise to another. Why has God not created only moral 
beings as much superior to the archangels as they are 
superior to the lowest Australian aborigines ? But no 
complete answer can be given to a question which may be 
followed by a series of similar questions to which there 
is no end. We have, besides, neither the facts nor the 
faculties to answer such questions." i 

Now I confess that this argument presents to my mind 
more of subtlety than sense. I had previously imagined 
that the archangels were supposed to enjoy a condition of 
moral existence which might fairly be thought to remove 
them from any association with that of the Australian 
aborigines. But as this question is one that belongs to 
Divinity, I am here quite prepared to bow to Professor 
Flint's authority — hoping, however, that he is prepared to 
take the responsibility should the archangels ever care to 
accuse me of calumny. But, as a logician, I must be per- 
mitted to observe, that if I ask. Why am I not better than 
I am ? it is no answer to tell me, Because the archangels 
are not better than they are. For aught that I know to 
the contrary, the archangels may be moTallj perfect — as an 

1 Op. cit., pp. 255-257. 



TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM, ' 179 

authority in such matters has told us that even "just 
men " may become, — and therefore, for aught that I know 
to the contrary, Professor Flint's regress of moral degrees 
ad infinitum, may be an ontological absurdity. But 
granting, for the sake of argument, that archangels fall 
infinitely short of moral perfection, and I should only be 
able to see in the fact a hopeless aggravation of my previous 
difiiculty. If it is hard to reconcile the supreme good- 
ness of God with the moral turpitude of man, much more 
would it be hard to do so if his very angels are depraved. 
Therefore, if the reasonable question which I originally 
put " may be followed by a series of similar questions to 
which there is no end," the goodness of God must simply 
be pronounced a delusion. For the question which I 
originally put was no mere flimsy question of a stupidly 
unreal description. My own moral depravity is a matter 
of painful certainty to me, and I want to know why, if 
there is a God of infinite power and goodness, he should 
have made me thus. And in answer I am told that my 
question is " practically without importance," because 
there may be an endless series of beings who, in their 
several degrees, are in a similar predicament to myself. 
Perhaps they are ; but if so, the moral evil with which I 
am directly acquainted is made all the blacker by the fact 
that it is thus but a drop in an infinite ocean of moral im- 
perfection. When, therefore. Professor Flint goes on to 
say, " We ought to be content if we can show that what 
God has done is wise and right, and not perplex ourselves 
as to why He has not done an infinity of other things," I 
answer. Most certainly ; but can we show that what God has 
done is wise and right ? Unquestionably not. That what 
he has done may be wise and right, could we see his whole 
scheme of things, no careful thinker will deny ; but to sup- 
pose it can be shown that he has done this, is an instance 
of purblind fanaticism which is most startling in a work 
on Theism. " The best world, we may he assured, that our 
fancies can feign, would in reality be far inferior to the 



i8o SUPPLEMENTAR V ESS A V. 

world God lias made, whatever imperfections we may 
think we see in it." Are we reading a sermon on the 
datum " God is love " ? No ; but a work on the questions, 
Is there a God? and, if so. Is he a God of love ? And yet 
the work is written by a man who evidently tries to argue 
fairly. What shall we say of the despotism of preformed 
beliefs ? May we not say at least this much — that those 
who endeavour to reconcile their theories of divine good- 
ness with the facts of human evil might well appropriate 
to themselves the words above quoted, " We have neither 
the facts nor the faculties to answer such questions " ? 
For the " facts " indeed are absent, and the " faculties " of 
impartial thought must be absent also, if this obvious 
truth cannot be seen — that " these questions " only derive 
their " speculatively unanswerable " character from the 
rational falsity of the manner by which it is sought 
to answer them. The "facts" of our moral nature, so 
far as honest reason can perceive, belie the hypothesis of 
Theism ; and although the " faculties " of man may be 
forced by prejudice into an acceptance of contradictory 
propositions, the truth is obvious that only by the hypo- 
thesis of Evolution can that old-tied knot be cut — the 
Origin of Evil. The form of Theism for which Dr. Flint 
is arguing is the current form, viz., that there is a God who 
combines in himself the attributes of infinite power . and 
perfect goodness — a God at once omnipotent and wholly 
moral. But, in view of the fact that moral evil exists in 
man, the proposition that God is omnipotent and the pro- 
position that he is wholly moral become contradictory ; 
and therefore the fact of moral evil can only be met, either 
by abandoning one or other of these propositions, or by 
altogether rejecting the hypothesis of Theism. 



( i8i ) 



III. 

THE SPECULATIVE STANDING OF 
MATEEIALISM. 

As a continuation of my criticism on Mr. Fiske's views, 
I think it is desirable to add a few words concerning the 
speculative annihilation with which he supposes Mr. 
Spencer's doctrines to have visited Materialism. Of 
course it is a self-evident truism that the doctrine of 
Eelativity is destructive of Materialism, if by Materialism 
we mean a theory which ignores that doctrine. In other 
words, the doctrine of Eelativity, if accepted, clearly 
excludes the doctrine that Matter, as known phenomenally, 
is at all likely to be a true representative of whatever 
thing -in-itself it may be that constitutes Mind. But this 
position is fully established by the doctrine of Eelativity 
alone, and is therefore not in the least affected, either 
by way of confirmation or otherwise, by Mr. Spencer's 
extended doctrine of the Unknowable — it being only 
because the latter doctrine presupposes the doctrine of 
Eelativity that it is exclusive of Materialism in the sense 
which has just been stated. So far, therefore, Mr. 
Spencer's writings cannot be held to have any special 
bearing on the doctrine of Materialism. Such a special 
bearing is only exerted by these writings when they 
proceed to show that " it seems an imaginable possibility 
that units of external force may be identical in nature 
with the units of the force known as feeling." Let us 
then ascertain how far it is true that the argument already 
quoted, and which leads to this conclusion, is utterly 
destructive of Materialism. 



i82 THE SPECULATIVE STANDING 

In the first place, I may observe tliat this argument 
differs in several instructive particulars from the anti- 
materialistic argument of Locke, which we have already 
had occasion to consider. For while Locke erroneously 
imagined that the test of inconceivability is of equivalent 
value wherever it is applied, save only where it conflicts 
with preconceived ideas on the subject of Theism (see 
Appendix A.), Spencer, of course, is much too careful a 
thinker to fall into so obvious a fallacy. But again, it is 
curious to observe that in the anti-materialistic argument 
of Spencer the test of inconceivability is used in a manner 
the precise opposite of that in which it is used in the anti- 
materialistic argument of Locke. For while the ground of 
Locke's argument is that Materialism must be untrue 
because it is inconceivable that Matter (and Force) should 
be of a psychical nature ; the ground of Spencer's argu- 
ment is that what we know as Force (and Matter) may 
not inconceivably be of a psychical nature. For my own 
part, I think that Spencer's argument is, psychologically 
speaking, the more valid of the two ; but nevertheless I 
think that, logically speaking, it is likewise invalid to a 
perceptibly great, and to a further indefinite, degree. For 
the argument sets out with the reflection that we can only 
know Matter and Force as symbols of consciousness, while 
■we know consciousness directly, and therefore that we can 
go further in conceivably translating Matter and Force 
into terms of Mind than vice versa. And this is true, 
but it does not therefore follow that the truth is more 
likely to lie in the direction that thought can most easily 
travel. For although I am at one with Mr. Spencer, 
whom Mr. Fiske follows, in regarding his test of truth — 
viz., inconceivability of a negation — as the most ultimate 
test within our reach, I cannot agree with him that in 
this particular case it is the most trustworthy test within 
our reach. I cannot do so because the reflection is forced 
upon me that, " as the terms which are contemplated in 
this particular case are respectively the highest abstrac- 



OF MA TERIALISM. 1 83 

tions of objective and of subjective existence, the test of 
truth in question is neutralised by directly encountering 
the inconceivable relation that exists between subject and 
object." Or, in other words, as before stated, " whatever 
the cause of Mind may be, we can clearly perceive it to 
be a subjective necessity of the case that, in ultimate 
analysis, we should find it more easy to conceive of this 
cause as resembling Mind^the only entity of which we 
are directly conscious — than to conceive of it as any 
other entity of which we are oaly indirectly conscious." 
When, therefore, Mr. Spencer argues that " it is impossible 
to interpret inner existence in terms of outer existence," 
while it is not so impossible to interpret outer existence 
in terms of inner existence, the fact is merely what we 
should in any case expect a priori to be the fact, and 
therefore as a fact it is not a very surprising discovery 
a posteriori. So that when Mr. Fiske proceeds to make 
this fact the basis of his argument, that because we can 
more conceivably regard objective existence as like in 
kind to subjective existence than conversely, therefore we 
should conclude that there is a corresponding probability 
in favour of the more conceivable proposition, I demur to 
his argument. For, fully accepting the fact on which the 
argument rests, and it seems to me, in view of what I 
have said, that the latter assigns an altogether dispro- 
portionate value to the test of inconceivability in this case. 
Far from endowing this test with so great an authority in 
this case, I should regard it not only as perceptibly of 
very small validity, but, as I have said, invalid to a degree 
which we have no means of ascertaining. If it be asked. 
What other gauge of probability can we have in this 
matter other than such a direct appeal to consciousness ? 
I answer, that this appeal being here a priori invalid, we 
are left to fall back upon the formal probability which is 
established by an application of scientific canons to objec- 
tive phenomena. (See footnote in § 14.) For, be it care- 
fully observed, Mr. Spencer, and his disciple Mr. Fiske, 



i84 THE SPECULATIVE STANDING 

are not idealists. Were this the case, of course the test 
of an immediate appeal to consciousness would be to them 
the only test available. But, on the contrary, as all the 
world knows, Mr. Spencer asserts the existence of an 
unknown Eeality, of which all phenomena are the mani- 
festations. Consequently, what we call Force and Matter 
are, according to this doctrine, phenomenal manifestations 
of this objective Eeality. That is to say, for aught that 
we can know, Force and Matter may be anything within 
the whole range of the possible ; and the only limitation 
that can be assigned to them is, that they are modes of 
existence which are independent of, or objective to, our 
individual consciousness, but which are uniformly trans- 
lated into consciousness as Force and Matter. Now it 
does not signify one iota for the purposes of Materialism 
whether these our symbolical representations of Force and 
Matter are accurate or inaccurate representations of their 
corresponding realities, — unless, of course, some indepen- 
dent reason could be shown for supposing that in their 
reality they resemble Mind. Call Force x and Matter y, 
and so long as we are agreed that x and y are objective 
realities which are uniformly translated into consciousness 
as Force and Matter, the materialistic deductions remain 
unaffected by this mere change in our terminology ; these 
essential facts are allowed to remain substantially as 
before, namely, that there is an external something or 
external somethings — Matter and Force, or x and y — 
which themselves display no observable tokens of con- 
sciousness, but which are invariably associated with con- 
sciousness in a highly distinctive manner. 

I dwell at length upon this subject, because although 
Mr. Spencer himself does not appear to attach much 
weight to his argument, Mr. Fiske, as we have seen, 
elevates it into a basis for " Cosmic Theism." Yet so far 
is this argument from " ruling out," as Mr. Fiske asserts, 
the essential doctrine of Materialism — i.e., the doctrine 
that what we know as Mind is an effect of certain coUo- 



OF MATERIALISM. 185 

cations and distributions of what we hnow as Matter and 
Force — that the argument might be employed with almost 
the same degree of effect, or absence of effect, to disprove 
any instance of recognised causation. Thus, for example, 
the doctrine of Materialism is no more "ruled out" by 
the reflection that what we cognise as cerebral matter 
is only cognised relatively, than would the doctrine of 
chemical equivalents be "ruled out" by the parallel 
reflection that what we cognise as chemical elements are 
only cognised relatively. I say advisedly, " with almost 
the same degree of effect," because, to be strictly accurate, 
we ought not altogether to ignore the indefinitely slender 
presumption which Mr. Spencer's subjective test of incon- 
ceivability establishes on the side of Spiritualism, as 
against the objective evidence of causation on the side of 
Materialism. As this is an important subject, I will be a 
little more explicit. We are agreed that Force and Matter 
are entities external to consciousness, of which we can 
possess only symbolical knowledge. Therefore, as we 
have said, Force and Matter may be anything within the 
whole range of the possible. But we know that Mind is 
a possible entity, while we have no certain knowledge of 
any other possible entity. Hence we are justified in say- 
ing, It is possible that Force and Matter may be identical 
with the only entity which we know as certainly possible ; 
but forasmuch as we do not know the sum of possible 
entities, we have no means of calculating the chances 
there are that what we know as Force and Matter are 
identical in nature with Mind. Still, that there is a 
chance we cannot dispute ; all we can assert is, that we 
are unable to determine its value, and that it would be a 
mistake to suppose we can do so, even in the lowest 
degree, by Mr. Spencer's test of inconceivability. Never- 
theless, the fact that there is such a chance renders it in 
some indeterminate degree more probable that what we 
know as Force and Matter are identical with what we 
know as Mind, than that what we know as oxygen and 



1 86 THE SPECULATIVE STANDING 

hydrogen are identical with what we know as water. 
So that to this extent the essential doctrine of Materialism 
is " ruled out " in a further degree by the philosophy of 
the Unknowable than is the chemical doctrine of equiva- 
lents. But, of course, this indefinite possibility of what 
we know as Force and Matter being identical with what 
we know as Mind does not neutralise, in any determin- 
able degree, the considerations whereby Materialism in its 
present shape infers that what we know as Force and 
Matter are probably distinct from what we know as Mind. 
But I see no reason why Materialism should be re- 
stricted to this " its present shape." Even if we admit to 
the fullest extent the validity of Mr. Spencer's argument, 
and conclude with Professor Clifford as a matter of proba- 
bility that "■ the universe consists entirely of Mind-stuff," 
I do not see that the admission would affect Materialism 
in any essential respect. For here again the admission 
would amount to little else, so far as Materialism is 
directly concerned, than a change of terminology : in- 
stead of calling objective existence "Matter," we call it 
" Mind-stuff." I say " to little, else," because no doubt in 
one particular there is here some change introduced in the 
speculative standing of the subject. So long as Matter and 
Mind, X and y, are held to be antithetically opposed in 
substance, so long must Materialism suppose that a con- 
nection of causality subsists between the two, such that 
the former substance is 'produced in some unaccountable 
way by the latter. But when Matter and Mind, x and y, 
are supposed to be identical in substance, the need for any 
additional supposition as to a causal connection is ex- 
cluded. But unless we hold, what seems to me an uncalled- 
for opinion, that the essential feature of Materialism con- 
sists in a postulation of a causal connection between x 
and y, it would appear that the only effect of supposing 
x and y to be really but one substance z, must be that of 
strengthening the essential doctrine of Materialism — the 
doctrine, namely, that conscious intellectual existence is 



OF MA TERIALISM, 1 87 

necessarily associated witli that form of existence which 
we know phenomenally as Matter and Motion. If it is 
true that a " a moving molecule of inorganic matter does 
not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a 
small piece of Mind-stuff/' then assuredly the central 
position of Materialism is shown to be impregnable. For 
while it remains as true as ever that mind and conscious- 
ness can only emerge when what we know phenomenally 
as " Matter takes the complex form of a living brain/' we 
have abolished the necessity for assuming even a causal 
connection between the substance of what we know phe- 
nomenally as Matter and the substance of what we know 
phenomenally as Mind : we have found that, in the last 
resort, the phenomenal connection between what we know 
as Matter and what we know as Mind is actually even 
more intimate than a connection of causality; we have 
found that it is a substantial identity. 

To sum up this discussion. We have considered the 
bearing of modern speculation on the doctrine of Mate- 
rialism in three successive stages of argument. First, we 
had to consider the bearing on Materialism of the simple 
doctrine of Eelativity. Here we saw that Materialism 
was only affected to the extent of being compelled to 
allow that what we know as Matter and Motion are not 
known as they are in themselves. But we also saw that, 
as the inscrutable realities are uniformly translated into 
consciousness as Matter and Motion, it still remains as true 
as ever that what we know as Matter and Motion may be 
the causes of what we know as Mind. Even, therefore, 
if the supposition of causality is taken to be an essential 
feature of Materialism, Materialism would be in no wise 
affected by substituting for the words Matter and Motion 
the symbols x and y. 

The second of the three stages consisted in showing that 
Mr. Spencer's argument as to the possible identity of 
Force and Feeling is not in itself sufficient to overthrow 
the doctrine that what we know as Matter and Motion 



i88 THE SPECULATIVE STANDING, ETC. 

may be the cause of what we know as Mind. For the 
mere fact of its being more conceivahh that units of Force 
should resemble units of Feeling than conversely, is no 
warrant for concluding that in reality any corresponding 
probability obtains. The test of conceivability, although 
the most ultimate test that is available, is here rendered 
vague and valueless by the a priori consideration that 
whatever the cause of Mind may be (if it has a cause), we 
must find it more easy to conceive of this cause as 
resembling Mind than to conceive of it as resembling any 
other entity of which we are only conscious indirectly. 

Lastly, in the third place, we saw that even if Mr. 
Spencer's argument were fully subscribed to, and Mind in 
its substantial essence were conceded to be causeless, the 
central position of Materialism would still remain un- 
affected. For Mr. Spencer does not suppose that his 
" units of Force " are themselves endowed with conscious- 
ness, any more than Professor Clifford supposes his 
" moving molecules of inorganic matter " to be thus en- 
dowed. So that the only change which these possibilities, 
even if conceded to be actualities, produce in the specu- 
lative standing of Materialism, is to show that the raw 
material of consciousness, instead of requiring to be caused 
by other substances — Matter and Force, x and y, — occurs 
ready made as those substances. But the essential feature 
of Materialism remains untouched — namely, that what we 
know as Mind is dependent (whether by way of causality 
or not is immaterial) on highly complex forms of what 
we know as Matter, in association with highly peculiar 
distributions of what we know as Force. 



( i89 ) 



IV. 

THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 

Some physicists are inclined to dispute the fundamental 
proposition on which the whole of Mr. Spencer's system 
of philosophy may he said to rest — the proposition, 
namely, that the fact of the " persistence of force " con- 
stitutes the ultimate hasis of science. For my own part, 
I cannot hut helieve that any disagreement on this matter 
only arises from some want of mutual understanding ; and, 
therefore, in order to anticipate any criticisms to which 
the present work may be open on this score, I append 
this explanatory note. 

I readily grant that the term " persistence of force " is 
not a happy one, seeing that the word " force," as used by 
physicists, does not at the present time convey "the full 
meaning which Mr. Spencer desires it to convey. But I 
think that any impartial physicist will be prepared to 
admit that, in the present state of his science, we are 
entitled to conclude that energy of position is merely the 
result of energy of motion; or, in other words, that 
potential energy is merely an expression of the fact that 
the universe, as a whole, is replete with actual energy, 
whose essential characteristic is that it is indestructible. 
And this may be concluded without committing ourselves 
to any particular theory as to the physical explanation of 
gravity ; all we need assert is, that in some way or other 
gravity is the result of ubiquitous energy. And this, it 
seenis to me, we must assert, or else conclude that gravity 
can never admit of a physical explanation. For all that 



I90 THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 

we mean by a physical explanation is the proved establish- 
ment of an equation between two quantities of energy ; 
so that if energy of position does not admit of being 
interpreted in terms of energy of motion, we must con- 
clude that it does not admit of being interpreted at all — 
at least not in any physical sense. 

Throughout the foregoing essays, therefore, I have 
assumed that all forms of energy are but relatively vary- 
ing expressions of the same fact — the fact, namely, which 
Mr. Spencer means to express when he says that force is 
persistent. And it seems to me almost needless to show 
that this fact is really the basis of all science. For unless 
this fact is assumed as a postulate,, not only would scien- 
tific inquiry become impossible, but all experience would 
become chaotic. The physicist could not prosecute his 
researches unless he presupposed that the forces which 
he measures are of a permanent nature, any more than 
could the chemist prosecute his researches unless he pre- 
supposed that the materials which he estimates by energy- 
units are likewise of a permanent nature. And similarly 
with all the other sciences, as well as with every 
judgment in our daily experience. If, therefore, any one 
should be hypercritical enough to dispute the position that 
the doctrine of the conservation of energy constitutes the 
" ultimate datum " of science, I think it will be enough 
to observe that if this is not the " ultimate datum " of 
science, science can have no " ultimate datum " at all. 
For any datum more ultimate than permanent existence 
is manifestly impossible, while any such datum as non- 
permanent existence would clearly render science im- 
possible. Even, therefore, if such hypercriticism had a 
valid basis of apparently adverse fact whereon to stand, 
I should feel myself justified in neglecting it on a priori 
grounds ; but the only basis on which such hypercriticism 
can rest is, not the knowledge of any adverse facts, but 
the ignorance of certain facts which we must either con- 
elude to be facts or else conclude that science can have 



THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 191 

no ultimate datum whereon to rest. In the foregoing 
essays, therefore, I have not scrupled to maintain that the 
ultimate datum of science is destructive of teleology as 
a scientific argument for Theism ; because, unless we deny 
the possibility of any such ultimate datum, and so land 
ourselves in hopeless scepticism, we must conclude that 
there can be no datum more ultimate than this — Perman- 
ent Existence ; and this is just the datum which we have 
seen to be destructive of teleology as a scientific argument 
for Theism. 

It may be well to point out that from this ultimate 
datum of science — or rather, let us say, of experience — 
there follows a deductive explanation of the law of 
causation. For this law, when stripped of all the 
metaphysical corruptions with which it has been so 
cumbersomely clothed, simply means that a given colloca- 
tion of antecedents unconditionally produces a certain 
consequent. But this fact, otherwise stated, amounts to 
nothing more than a re-statement of the ultimate datum 
of experience — the fact that energy is indestructible. For 
if this latter fact be granted, it is obvious that the so- 
called law of causation follows as a deductive necessity — 
or rather, as I have said, that this law becomes but another 
way of expressing the same fact. This is obvious if we 
reflect that the only means we have of ascertaining that 
energy is not destructible, is by observing that similar 
antecedents do invariably determine similar consequents. 
It is as a vast induction from all those particular cases of 
sequence-changes which collectively we call causation that 
we conclude energy to be indestructible. And, obversely, 
ha"vdng concluded energy to be indestructible, we can 
plainly see that in any particular cases of its manifestation 
in sequence-phenomena, the unconditional resemblance 
between effects due to similar causes which is formulated 
by the law of causation is merely the direct expression of 
the fact which we had previously concluded. It seems to 
me, therefore, that the old-standing question concerning 



192 THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 

the nature of causation ought now properly to be con- 
sidered as obsolete. Doubtless there will long remain a 
sort of hereditary tendency in metaphysical minds to look 
upon cause-connection as " a mysterious tie " between ante- 
cedent and consequent ; but henceforth there is no need 
for scientific minds to regard this " tie " as " mysterious " 
in any other sense than the existence of energy is " mys- 
terious." To state the law of causation is merely to state 
the fact that energy is indestructible. 

And from this there also arises at once the explanation 
and the justification of our belief in the uniformity of 
nature. If energy is, in its relation to us, ubiquitous and 
persistent, it clearly follows that in all its manifestations 
which collectively we call nature, similar preceding mani- 
festations must always determine similar succeeding mani- 
festations; for otherwise the energy concerned would 
require on one or on both of the occasions, either to have 
become augmented by creation, or dissipated by annihila- 
tion. Thus our belief in the uniformity of nature, as in 
the validity of the law of causation, is merely an expres- 
sion of our belief in the ubiquitous and indestructible 
character of energy. 

Such being the case, we may fairly conclude that all 
these old-standing "mysteries" are now merged in the one 
mystery of existence. And deeper than this it is manifestly 
impossible that they can be merged ; for it is manifestly 
impossible that Existence in the abstract can ever admit 
of what we call explanation. Hence we can clearly see 
that, in a scientific sense, there must always remain a final 
mystery of things. But although we can thus see that, 
from the very meaning of what we call explanation, it 
follows that at the base of all our explanations there 
must lie a great Inexplicable, I think that the mystery of 
Existence in the abstract may be rendered less appalling 
if we reflect that, as opposed to Existence, there is only one 
logical alternative — JSTon- existence. Supposing, then, our 
physical explanations to have reached their highest limits 



THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 193 

by resolving all modes of Existence into one mode — force, 
matter, life, and mind, being sbown but different mani- 
festations of the same Infinite Existence — tlie final mystery 
of things would then become resolved into the simple 
question, Why is there Existence? — Why is there not 
ISTothing ? 

Let us then first ask, What is " N'othing " ? Is it a 
mere word, which presents no meaning as corresponding 
to any objective reality, or has the word a meaning not- 
withstanding its being an inconceivable one ? Or, other- 
wise phrased, is Nothing possible or impossible ? ISTow, 
although in ordinary conversation it is generally taken 
for granted that !N"othing is possible, there is certainly no 
more ground for this supposition than there is for its 
converse — viz., that JSTo thing is merely a word which 
signifies the negation of possibility. Eor analysis will 
show that the choice between these two counter-supposi- 
tions can only be made in the presence of knowledge 
wliich is necessarily absent — the knowledge whether the 
universe of Existence is finite or infinite. If the universe 
as a whole is finite, the word Nothing would stand as a 
symbol to denote an unthinkable blank of which a finite 
universe is the content. And forasmuch as Something and 
Nothing would then become actual, as distinguished from 
nominal correlatives, we could have no guarantee that, in 
an absolute or transcendental sense, it may not be pos- 
sible, although it is inconceivable, for Something to be- 
come Nothing or Nothing Something. Hence, if Existence 
is finite. No-existence becomes possible ; and the doctrine of 
the indestructibility of Existence becomes, for aught that 
we can tell, of a merely relative signification. But, on the 
other hand, if Existence is infinite, No-existence becomes 
impossible; and the doctrine of the indestructibility of 
Existence becomes, in a logical sense, of an absolute 
signification. For it is manifest that if the universe of 
Existence is without end in space and time, the possibility 
of No- existence is of necessity excluded, and the word 

N 



194 THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 

"Nothing" thus becomes a mere negation of possi- 
bility.! 

Thus, if it be conceded that the universe as a whole is 
infinite both in space and time, the concession amounts to 
an abolition of the final mystery of things. For all that 
we mean by a mystery is something that requires an ex- 
planation, and the whole of the final mystery of things 
is therefore embodied in the question, "Why is there 
Existence ? — Why is there not Nothing ? " But if the 
universe of Existence be conceded infinite, this question 
is sufficiently met by the answer, " Because Existence is, 
and Nothing is not." If it is retorted, But this is ijo real 
answer ; I reply, It is as real as the question. Eor to ask. 
Why is there Existence ? is, upon the supposition which has 
been conceded, equivalent to asking, Why is the possible 
possible ? And if such questions cannot be answered, it 
is scarcely right to say that on this account they embody 
a mystery ; because the questions are really not rational 
questions, and therefore the fact of their not admitting of 
any rational answer cannot be held to show that the 
questions embody any rational mystery. That there is a 



1 Let it be observed that there is a not become extinguished by the ex- 
distinction between what I may call tinctiou of the system, it may not now 
substantial and formal existence, stand in any real relation to what we 
Thus there is no doubt that flowers call space and time. I am inclined to 
as flowers perish, or become non- think that it is upon the idea of non- 
existent ; but the substances of existence in this formal sense that we 
which they were composed persist, construct a pseud-idea of non-exist- 
And, in this connection, I may here ence in a substantial sense ; but it 
point out that if the universe is is evident that if the universe as a 
infinite in space and time, the whole is absolute, this pseud-idea 
universe as a whole would present must represent an impossibility, 
substantial existence as standing And from this it follows, that if 
out of relation to space and time, existence is infinite in space and 
whereas innumerable portions of the time, every quantum of it with 
universe present only formal exis- which our experience comes into 
tences, because standing in relation relation must present, as its essential 
both to space and time. Thus, for quality, that quality which we find to 
instance, the solar system, as a solar be presented by the substance of 
system, must have an end in time as things— the quality, that is, of 
it has a boundary in space; but as persistence, 
the substance of which it consists will 



THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 195 

rational mystery, in the sense of there being something 
which can never be explained, I do not dispute ; all I 
assert is, that this mystery is inexplicable only hecause 
there is nothing to explain ; the mystery being ultimate, to 
ask for an explanation of that which, being ultimate, re- 
quhes no explanation, is irrational. Or, to state the case in 
another way, if it is asked. Why is there not Nothing ? it is a 
sufficient answer, on supposition of the universe being in- 
finite, to say. Because ISTothing is nothing ; it is merely a 
word which presents no meaning, and which, so far as 
anything can be conceived to the contrary, never can pre- 
sent any meaning. 

The above discussion has proceeded on the supposition of 
Existence being infinite ; but practically the same result 
would follow on the counter-supposition of Existence being 
finite. Eor although in this case, as we have seen, ISTon- 
entity would be included within the range of possibility, it 
would still be no more conceivable as such than is Entity ; 
and hence the question. Why is there not ISTothing ? would 
still be irrational, seeing that, even if the possibility which 
the question supposes were realised, it would in no wise 
tend to explain the mystery of Something. And even if it 
could, the final mystery would not be thus excluded ; it 
would merely be transferred from the mystery of Exist- 
ence to the mystery of Non-existence. Thus under every 
conceivable supposition we arrive at the same termination 
— viz., that in the last resort there must be a final mystery, 
which, as forming the basis of all possible explanations, 
cannot itself receive any explanation, and which there- 
fore is really not, in any proper sense of the term, a 
mystery at all. It is merely a fact which itself requires no 
explanation, because it is a fact than which none can be 
more ultimate. So that even if we suppose this ultimate 
fact to be an Intelligent Being, it is clearly impossible 
that he should be able to explain his own existence, since 
the possibility of any such explanation would imply that 
his existence could not be ultimate. In the sense, there- 



196 THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 

fore, of not admitting of any explanation, his existence 
would require to be a mystery to himself, rendering it 
impossible for him to state anything further with regard 
to it than this — " I am that I am." 

I do not doubt that this way of looking at the subject 
will be deemed unsatisfactory at first sight, because it 
seems to be, as it were, a merely logical way of cheating 
our intelligence out of an intuitively felt justification for 
its own curiosity in this matter. But the fault really lies 
in this intuitive feeling of justification not being itself 
justifiable. For this particular question, it will be observed, 
differs from all other possible questions with which the 
mind has to deal. All other questions being questions 
concerning manifestations of existence presupposed as 
existing, it is perfectly legitimate to seek for an explana- 
tion of one series of manifestations in another — i.e., to 
refer a less known group to a group better known. But 
the case is manifestly quite otherwise when, having 
merged one group of manifestations into another group, 
and this into another for an indefinite number of stages, 
we suddenly make a leap to the last possible stage and 
ask, " Into what group are we to merge the basis of all 
our previous groups, and of all groups which can possibly 
be formed in the future ? How are we to classify that which 
contains all possible classes ? Where are we to look for an 
explanation of Existence ? " When thus clearly stated, 
the question is, as I have said, manifestly irrational ; but 
the point with which I am now concerned is this — When 
in plain reason the question is seen to be irrational, why 
in intuitive sentiment should it not be felt to be so ? 
The answer, I think, is, that the interrogative faculty 
being usually occupied with questions which admit of 
rational answers, we acquire a sort of intellectual habit of 
presupposing every wherefore to have a therefore, and 
thus, when eventually we arrive at the last of all possible 
wherefores, which itself supplies the basis of all possible 
therefores, we fail at first to recognise the exceptional 



THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS. 197 

character of our position. We fail at first to perceive that, 
from the very nature^ of this particular case, our where- 
fore is deprived of the rational meaning which it had in 
all the previous cases, where the possibility of a corre- 
sponding therefore was presupposed. And failing fully 
to perceive this truth, our organised habit of expecting an 
answer to our question asserts itself, and we experience the 
same sense of intellectual unrest in the presence of this 
wholly meaningless and absurd question, as we experi- 
ence in the presence of questions significant and rational. 



THE END. 



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